Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell (1872 –1970)

Russell was an English philosopher, writer, historian, mathematician, social critic and logician. He was especially interested in the philosophy of epistemology, ethics and language. The concept of acquaintance knowledge arises from Russell’s work in his article, “Knowledge by Acquaintance and Knowledge by Description” (1910), and also in chapter five of his book, The Problems of Philosophy (1912). He explains acquaintance knowledge like this:

“…direct cognitive relation to the object, i.e. when [the subject is] directly aware of the object itself…”

(Russell 1910, p. 108)

And:

“…we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths…”

(Russell 1912, p. 46)