I think this book doesn't contain groundbreaking insights, or better,it doesn't say anything that isn't already under my eyes. Its biggest
accomplishment, however, is in the very act of showing how sometimes we
don't see what's under our eyes for a sort of mental laziness.
Russell forces us to move away from this laziness and reconsider
what we take for granted about ourselves, and does so with his enjoyable
style. He seems to possess the rare skill of finding the minimum amount
of words and concepts needed to solve the problem clearly
and accurately. He will never forget to define precisely all the terms
needed in the discussion, or to question the limits of the premises in
order to understand the scope of the conclusion.
In each chapter he considers a facet of what we call mind and
explores it both from the point of introspection and of external
analysis of observable behaviour. Introspection gives use information
impossible to obtain with other methods, and it is what gives meaning to
the problem of mind in the first place, but it has the intrinsic
problem of an instrument trying to measure itself. So Russell keeps on
correcting this "view from the inside" and the delusions it can create
with the stick of behaviourism and objective observation.
I also highly appreciate the intellectual
honesty of Russell who can freely use the words "contrary to what I once
stated".
The only negative aspect I can think of is that after one has understood the
method of analysis employed he can probably predict how it will be used
by the author to investigate the remaining items of his inquiry.
While I
was reading the second half of the book I often found myself
anticipating his reasoning, and thinking that those last chapters could
have been thinner. However the author's highly readable prose makes this
a very small problem.
