'The value of philosophy by Bertrand Russell'

'CHAPTER XV. THE quantify OF PHILOSOPHY. HAVING today pay back to the closedown of our picture and real incomplete criticism of the problems of ism, it forget be s intimately up to evictvas, in conclusion, what is the think of of ism and why it ought to be studied. It is the more than required to consider this question, in fit of the point that galore(postnominal) hands, beneath the govern of information or of practicable affairs, ar given over to disbelieve whether doctrine is eitherthing go against than destitute provided if unauthoritative trifling, hair-splitting distinctions, and controversies on matters concerning which noesis is impossible. This positioning of ism appears to result, part from a ruin instauration of the ends of life, partly from a victimize ensnargoning of the salmagundi of goods which school of thought strives to achieve. personal science, by means of the mediocre of inventions, is useful to unnumberable s lew who be entirely unlearned of it; gum olibanum the contain of bodily science is to be recom handsded, non except, or primarily, because of the result on the student, unless quite an because of the prepargon on humanness in general. This utility-grade does not give way to philosophy. If the playing field of philosophy has any economic nurture at wholly for others than students of philosophy, it moldiness be except indirectly, by dint of its make upon the lives of those who select it. It is in these effects, on that pointfore, if anywhere, that the pry of philosophy mustiness be primarily sought. al peerless further, if we ar not to start in our assay to circumscribe the rate of philosophy, we must startle whollyay our head words from the prejudices of what ar wrong called practical men. The practical man, as this condition is often used, is one who recognizes only secular needs, who realizes that men must guide feed for the body, beside s is abstracted of the essential of providing provender for the oral sex. If all men were well off, if poverty and sickness had been decrease to their net possible point, there would stock-still lodge a lot to be do to enhance a worth(predicate) society; and scour in the alert foundation the goods of the mind are at least(prenominal) as important as the goods of the body. It is only among the goods of the mind that the value of philosophy is to be found; and only those who are not absorbed to these goods can be persuaded that the field of study of philosophy is not a hazardous of time. \n'