The Problems of Philosophy was published by Williams and Norgate in London in 1912 as part of the Home University Library series. Russell wrote it quickly — in a few months — and it shows the qualities that made him the most effective philosophical writer of his century: absolute clarity, a gift for concrete examples, and the ability to make difficult problems feel urgent without oversimplifying them.
The book begins with a table: Russell asks whether we can be certain that it exists. This is not idle skepticism but a genuine philosophical problem — the table looks different from different angles, feels different to different senses, and the “table” we think we know is a construction from sense-data rather than a direct perception of reality. From this starting point, Russell works through a series of fundamental questions: Do physical objects exist independently of our perception? What is the relationship between appearance and reality? Can we know anything for certain? What are universals, and do they exist? What is the nature of truth?
Russell’s answers draw on the British empiricist tradition (Locke, Berkeley, Hume) and on his own logical work, but the book’s value lies less in its specific conclusions than in its demonstration of philosophical method: how to identify a genuine problem, how to state it precisely, how to evaluate proposed solutions, and how to recognize when a question has been answered and when it remains open.
The book has been continuously in print for over a century and has been translated into dozens of languages. It remains the standard introduction to philosophy in many university courses, and its influence on subsequent introductory texts is immeasurable.
Collecting The Problems of Philosophy
First edition (Williams and Norgate, London, 1912): Small cloth boards, Home University Library series.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $300–$800
- Very good: $100–$300
- Signed: $1,000–$3,000