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The aim of this paper is to clarify the relation between democracy and philosophy in Bertrand Russell's educational thought. In the first place, I think, Russell's thought of democracy is derived from... his two existential experiences. According to Russell's autobiographical talks, early in 1901 he had an experience not unlike what religious people call "conversion", and so he has realized the following: "nothing can penetrate the human soul except the highest intensity of the sort of love that religious teachers have preached." Then, in 1914 something that if Russell had been religious he would have called the Voice of God, compelled him to persist in protesting against the First World War. These experiences have caused the thought of the dignity of Individual, from which democracy comes. In the second place, Russell's thought of democracy is based on a cosmological spectacle, for "the individual to be the ultimate value is an emdodied fragment of the dumb striving of the world, or something eternal and universal." Therefore, the individual, like Leibniz's monads, should mirror the world which is impersonal and above mankind and remember that Spinoza advised men to view passing events "sub specie aeternitatis " To be brief, "the individual is self-subsistent, " while the citizen is circumscribed by his neighbours or such the state as Hegel imagined. In the third place, Russell's philosophical method promotes the democracy and the world peace. "The essence of this method is scientific truthfulness " The habit of careful veracity acquired in the practice of this method can be extend to the whole sphere of human activity, producing "a lessening of fanaticism with an increasing capacity of sympathy and mutualunderstanding." To conclede, Russell's philosophy essentially supports democracy.show more
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