Lord Russell and the Nature of Truth

I finally finished The History of Western Philosophy in which Bertrand Russell essentially sees that history as a long series of missteps and misunderstandings. Most philosophers, Russell contends, have based their ethical and political systems on their metaphysical systems: in this way, they are like poets who begin with an assumption and then proceed to write a poem, never really considering the nature of their original assumption. Yet it would seem inconceivable that philosopher after philosopher would be incapable of interrogating his original assumption--although one supposes that, in any intellectual process, one must start somewhere. Nonetheless, while philosophers are not necessarily responsible for the subsequent horrors their ethical and political systems anticipate--Russell looks at Plato, Rousseau, Byron, and Nietzsche, among others, as leading to Hitler and Locke as leading to Roosevelt and Churchill and Bergson to Vichy--there is still the suggestion that, in some way, their status as "philosophers" ultimately legitimated the ethical and political monstrosities that did eventually emerge (although Roosevelt may not necessarily be included as a progenitor of a monstrosity). Russell is particularly keen to criticize subjectivist or idealist philosophers and their systems, for they inherently diverge from any kind of shared (not necessarily objective) sense of truth, either allowing for a worthless democracy of truths (truth is what each individual believes is true or what each individual simply creates as true--e.g., the Bush administration) or the truths of self-identified "great" or "noble" men (or man) who then proceed, in general, to impose their truth on others. "The concept of 'truth' as something dependent upon facts largely outside human control," writes Russell, "has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a certain kind of madness--the intoxication of power . . . to which modern men, whether philosophers or not, are prone" (828). Where this humility can be found in previous philosophers as Russell discusses them is not clear to me; still, as he wrote the book mostly during World War II and its attendant horrors, there is much to agree with in this statement. He concludes: "I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disaster" (828).