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= Bertrand_Russell =
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Introduction
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Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 - 2
February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and
public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set
theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.
He was one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians and a
founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob
Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore, and his student and
protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British
"revolt against idealism". Together with his former teacher A. N.
Whitehead, Russell wrote 'Principia Mathematica', a milestone in the
development of classical logic and a major attempt to reduce the whole
of mathematics to logic (see logicism). Russell's article "On
Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy".
Russell was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the
India League. He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I,
and initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi
Germany, before changing his view in 1943, describing war as a
necessary "lesser of two evils". In the wake of World War II, he
welcomed American global hegemony in preference to either Soviet
hegemony or no (or ineffective) world leadership, even if it were to
come at the cost of using their nuclear weapons. He would later
criticise Stalinist totalitarianism, condemn the United States'
involvement in the Vietnam War, and become an outspoken proponent of
nuclear disarmament.
In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature "in
recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he
champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought". He was also the
recipient of the De Morgan Medal (1932), Sylvester Medal (1934),
Kalinga Prize (1957), and Jerusalem Prize (1963).
Early life and background
===========================
Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Ravenscroft, a country
house in Trellech, Monmouthshire, on 18 May 1872, into an influential
and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents were
Viscount and Viscountess Amberley. Lord Amberley consented to his
wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas
Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when
this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley, a deist, asked the
philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather.
Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings later
influenced Russell's life.
Russell's paternal grandfather, Lord John Russell, later 1st Earl
Russell (1792-1878), had twice been Prime Minister of the United
Kingdom in the 1840s and 1860s. A member of Parliament since the early
1810s, he met with Napoleon Bonaparte in Elba. The Russells had been
prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to
power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty (see: Duke of
Bedford). They established themselves as one of the leading Whig
families and participated in political events from the dissolution of
the monasteries in 1536-1540 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688-1689
and the Great Reform Act in 1832.
Lady Amberley was the daughter of Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley.
Russell often feared the ridicule of his maternal grandmother, one of
the campaigners for education of women.
Childhood and adolescence
===========================
Russell had two siblings: brother Frank (seven years older), and
sister Rachel (four years older). In June 1874, Russell's mother died
of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876,
his father died of bronchitis after a long period of depression. Frank
and Bertrand were placed in the care of Victorian paternal
grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His
grandfather, former Prime Minister Earl Russell, died in 1878, and was
remembered by Russell as a kind old man in a wheelchair. His
grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the
central family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth.
The Countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family and petitioned
the Court of Chancery to set aside a provision in Amberley's will
requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. Despite her
religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas
(accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her
influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing
up for principle remained with him throughout his life. Her favourite
Bible verse, "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil", became
his motto. The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent
prayer, emotional repression and formality; Frank reacted to this with
open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings.
Russell's adolescence was lonely and he contemplated suicide. He
remarked in his autobiography that his interests in "nature and books
and (later) mathematics saved me from complete despondency;" only his
wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated
at home by a series of tutors. When Russell was eleven years old, his
brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which he described
in his autobiography as "one of the great events of my life, as
dazzling as first love".
During these formative years, he also discovered the works of Percy
Bysshe Shelley. Russell wrote: "I spent all my spare time reading him,
and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of
what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have
been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live
human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy." Russell claimed
that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about
the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found
unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no
free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death.
Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's 'Autobiography', he
abandoned the "First Cause" argument and became an atheist.
He travelled to the continent in 1890 with an American friend, Edward
FitzGerald, and with FitzGerald's family he visited the Paris
Exhibition of 1889 and climbed the Eiffel Tower soon after it was
completed.
Education
===========
Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at
Trinity College, Cambridge, and began his studies there in 1890,
taking as coach Robert Rumsey Webb. He became acquainted with the
younger George Edward Moore and came under the influence of Alfred
North Whitehead, who recommended him to the Cambridge Apostles. He
distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as
seventh Wrangler in the former in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the
latter in 1895.
Russell has presented ideas on the possible means of control of
education in case of scientific dictatorship governments, of the kind
of this excerpt taken from Chapter II "General Effects of Scientific
Technique" of "The Impact of Science on society":
He pushed his visionary scenarios even further into details, in
Chapter III "Scientific Technique in an Oligarchy" of the same book,
stating as an example:
Early career
==============
Russell began his published work in 1896 with 'German Social
Democracy', a study in politics that was an early indication of his
interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German
social democracy at the London School of Economics. He was a member of
the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the
Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
He now started a study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity.
In 1897, he wrote 'An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry' (submitted
at the Fellowship Examination of Trinity College) which discussed the
Cayley-Klein metrics used for non-Euclidean geometry. He attended the
first International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900 where he
met Giuseppe Peano and Alessandro Padoa. The Italians had responded to
Georg Cantor, making a science of set theory; they gave Russell their
literature including the 'Formulario mathematico'. Russell was
impressed by the precision of Peano's arguments at the Congress, read
the literature upon returning to England, and came upon Russell's
paradox. In 1903 he published 'The Principles of Mathematics', a work
on the foundations of mathematics. It advanced a thesis of logicism,
that mathematics and logic are one and the same.
At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a
"sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead's wife's
suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with
semi-mystical feelings about beauty and with a desire almost as
profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should
make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of
those five minutes, I had become a completely different person."
In 1905, he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the
philosophical journal 'Mind'. Russell was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society (FRS) in 1908. The three-volume 'Principia Mathematica',
written with Whitehead, was published between 1910 and 1913. This,
along with the earlier 'The Principles of Mathematics', soon made
Russell world-famous in his field. Russell's first political activity
was as the Independent Liberal candidate in the 1907 by-election for
the Wimbledon constituency, where he was not elected.
In 1910, he became a lecturer at the University of Cambridge, Trinity
College, where he had studied. He was considered for a fellowship,
which would give him a vote in the college government and protect him
from being fired for his opinions, but was passed over because he was
"anti-clerical", because he was agnostic. He was approached by the
Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, who started
undergraduate study with him. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a
successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing
with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his bouts of despair. This was
a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by
him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication
of Wittgenstein's 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' in 1922. Russell
delivered his lectures on logical atomism, his version of these ideas,
in 1918, before the end of World War I. Wittgenstein was, at that
time, serving in the Austrian Army and subsequently spent nine months
in an Italian prisoner of war camp at the end of the conflict.
First World War
=================
During World War I, Russell was one of the few people to engage in
active pacifist activities. In 1916, due to his absence of allegiance
to the war effort, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his
conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act 1914. He later described
this, in 'Free Thought and Official Propaganda', as an illegitimate
means the state used to violate freedom of expression. Russell
championed the case of Eric Chappelow, a poet jailed and abused as a
conscientious objector. Russell played a part in the 'Leeds
Convention' in June 1917, a historic event which saw well over a
thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the
Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Party, united in their
pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international
press reported that Russell appeared with a number of Labour Members
of Parliament (MPs), including Ramsay MacDonald and Philip Snowden, as
well as former Liberal MP and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor
Arnold Lupton. After the event, Russell told Lady Ottoline Morrell
that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the
greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody".
His conviction in 1916 resulted in Russell being fined £100 (100),
which he refused to pay in the hope that he would be sent to prison,
but his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were
bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible
that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police".
A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the United
States to enter the war on the United Kingdom's side resulted in six
months' imprisonment in Brixton Prison (see 'Bertrand Russell's
political views') in 1918 (he was prosecuted under the Defence of the
Realm Act) He later said of his imprisonment:
While he was reading Strachey's 'Eminent Victorians' chapter about
Gordon he laughed out loud in his cell prompting the warder to
intervene and reminding him that "prison was a place of punishment".
Russell was reinstated to Trinity in 1919, resigned in 1920, was
Tarner Lecturer in 1926 and became a Fellow again in 1944 until 1949.
In 1924, Russell again gained press attention when attending a
"banquet" in the House of Commons with well-known campaigners,
including Arnold Lupton, who had been an MP and had also endured
imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service".
G. H. Hardy on the Trinity controversy
========================================
In 1941, G. H. Hardy wrote a 61-page pamphlet titled 'Bertrand Russell
and Trinity' (published later as a book by Cambridge University Press
with a foreword by C. D. Broad) in which he gave an authoritative
account of Russell's 1916 dismissal from Trinity College, explaining
that a reconciliation between the college and Russell had later taken
place and gave details about Russell's personal life. Hardy writes
that Russell's dismissal had created a scandal since the vast majority
of the Fellows of the College opposed the decision. The ensuing
pressure from the Fellows induced the Council to reinstate Russell. In
January 1920, it was announced that Russell had accepted the
reinstatement offer from Trinity and would begin lecturing in October.
In July 1920, Russell applied for a one-year leave of absence; this
was approved. He spent the year giving lectures in China and Japan. In
January 1921, it was announced by Trinity that Russell had resigned
and his resignation had been accepted. This resignation, Hardy
explains, was voluntary and was not the result of another altercation.
The reason for the resignation, according to Hardy, was that Russell
was going through a tumultuous time in his personal life with a
divorce and subsequent remarriage. Russell contemplated asking Trinity
for another one-year leave of absence but decided against it since
this would have been an "unusual application" and the situation had
the potential to snowball into another controversy. Although Russell
did the right thing, in Hardy's opinion, the reputation of the College
suffered with Russell's resignation since the 'world of learning' knew
about Russell's altercation with Trinity but not that the rift had
healed. In 1925, Russell was asked by the Council of Trinity College
to give the 'Tarner Lectures' on the Philosophy of the Sciences; these
would later be the basis for one of Russell's best-received books
according to Hardy: 'The Analysis of Matter', published in 1927. In
the preface to the Trinity pamphlet, Hardy wrote:
Between the wars
==================
In August 1920, Russell travelled to Soviet Russia as part of an
official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the
effects of the Russian Revolution. He wrote a four-part series of
articles, titled "Soviet Russia--1920", for the magazine 'The Nation'.
He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In
his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin disappointing,
sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an
opinionated professor". He cruised down the Volga on a steamship. His
experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for the
revolution. He subsequently wrote a book, 'The Practice and Theory of
Bolshevism', about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of
24 others from the UK, all of whom came home thinking well of the
Soviet regime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For
example, he told them that he had heard shots fired in the middle of
the night and was sure that these were clandestine executions, but the
others maintained that it was only cars backfiring.
Russell's lover Dora Black, a British author, feminist and socialist
campaigner, visited Soviet Russia independently at the same time; in
contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the Bolshevik
revolution.
The following year, Russell, accompanied by Dora, visited Peking (as
Beijing was then known outside of China) to lecture on philosophy for
a year. He went with optimism and hope, seeing China as then being on
a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included John
Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel-laureate poet. Before
leaving China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and
incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press.
When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora took on
the role of spurning the local press by handing out notices reading
"Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is
unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists". Apparently they
found this harsh and reacted resentfully. Russell supported his family
during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of
physics, ethics, and education to the layman.
From 1922 to 1927 the Russells divided their time between London and
Cornwall, spending summers in Porthcurno. In the 1922 and 1923 general
elections Russell stood as a Labour Party candidate in the Chelsea
constituency, but only on the basis that he knew he was unlikely to be
elected in such a safe Conservative seat, and he was unsuccessful on
both occasions.
After the birth of his two children, he became interested in
education, especially early childhood education. He was not satisfied
with the old traditional education and thought that progressive
education also had some flaws; as a result, together with Dora,
Russell founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The
school was run from a succession of different locations, including its
original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near
Harting, West Sussex. During this time, he published 'On Education,
Especially in Early Childhood'. On 8 July 1930, Dora gave birth to her
third child Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora
continued it until 1943.
In 1927 Russell met Barry Fox (later Barry Stevens), who became a
known Gestalt therapist and writer in later years. They developed an
intense relationship, and in Fox's words: "...for three years we were
very close." Fox sent her daughter Judith to Beacon Hill School. From
1927 to 1932 Russell wrote 34 letters to Fox. Upon the death of his
elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell.
Russell's marriage to Dora grew tenuous, and it reached a breaking
point over her having two children with an American journalist,
Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18
January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate
named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess
since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert
Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a historian and one of the
leading figures in the Liberal Democrat party.
Russell returned in 1937 to the London School of Economics to lecture
on the science of power. During the 1930s, Russell became a friend and
collaborator of V. K. Krishna Menon, then President of the India
League, the foremost lobby in the United Kingdom for Indian
independence. Russell chaired the India League from 1932 to 1939.
Second World War
==================
Russell's political views changed over time, mostly about war. He
opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany. In 1937, he wrote in a
personal letter: "If the Germans succeed in sending an invading army
to England we should do best to treat them as visitors, give them
quarters and invite the commander and chief to dine with the prime
minister." In 1940, he changed his appeasement view that avoiding a
full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He
concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a
permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward
large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism": "War was
always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances,
it may be the lesser of two evils."
Before World War II, Russell taught at the University of Chicago,
later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of
Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York
(CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled
by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at
the college because of his opinions, especially those relating to
sexual morality, detailed in 'Marriage and Morals' (1929). The matter
was taken to the New York Supreme Court by Jean Kay who was afraid
that her daughter would be harmed by the appointment, though her
daughter was not a student at CCNY. Many intellectuals, led by John
Dewey, protested at his treatment. Albert Einstein's oft-quoted
aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent
opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter, dated
19 March 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY,
supporting Russell's appointment. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a
collection of articles on the CCNY affair in 'The Bertrand Russell
Case'. Russell soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a
varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed
the basis of 'A History of Western Philosophy'. His relationship with
the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to the UK
in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.
Later life
============
Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly
'The Brains Trust' and for the Third Programme, on various topical and
philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was known outside
academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and
newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a variety
of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in
Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (out of 43 passengers) of
an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his
life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking
part of the plane. 'A History of Western Philosophy' (1945) became a
best-seller and provided Russell with a steady income for the
remainder of his life.
In 1942, Russell argued in favour of a moderate socialism, capable of
overcoming its metaphysical principles. In an inquiry on dialectical
materialism, launched by the Austrian artist and philosopher Wolfgang
Paalen in his journal 'DYN', Russell said: "I think the metaphysics of
both Hegel and Marx plain nonsense--Marx's claim to be 'science' is no
more justified than Mary Baker Eddy's. This does not mean that I am
opposed to socialism."
In 1943, Russell expressed support for Zionism: "I have come gradually
to see that, in a dangerous and largely hostile world, it is essential
to Jews to have some country which is theirs, some region where they
are not suspected aliens, some state which embodies what is
distinctive in their culture".
In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR's aggression
continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR
possessed an atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the
USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with
fewer casualties than if there were atomic bombs on both sides. At
that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the
USSR was pursuing an aggressive policy towards the countries in
Eastern Europe which were being absorbed into the Soviet Union's
sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that
Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including
Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke of such matters.
Others, including Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech,
have argued that he was explaining the usefulness of America's atomic
arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of
Eastern Europe.
Just after the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
Russell wrote letters, and published articles in newspapers from 1945
to 1948, stating clearly that it was morally justified and better to
go to war against the USSR using atomic bombs while the United States
possessed them and before the USSR did. In September 1949, one week
after the USSR tested its first A-bomb, but before this became known,
Russell wrote that the USSR would be unable to develop nuclear weapons
because following Stalin's purges only science based on Marxist
principles would be practised in the Soviet Union. After it became
known that the USSR had carried out its nuclear bomb tests, Russell
declared his position advocating the total abolition of atomic
weapons.
In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith
Lectures--what was to become an annual series of lectures, still
broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled 'Authority
and the Individual', explored themes such as the role of individual
initiative in the development of a community and the role of state
control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about
philosophy. He wrote a foreword to 'Words and Things' by Ernest
Gellner, which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig
Wittgenstein and of ordinary language philosophy. Gilbert Ryle refused
to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal 'Mind', which
caused Russell to respond via 'The Times'. The result was a month-long
correspondence in 'The Times' between the supporters and detractors of
ordinary language philosophy, which was ended when the paper published
an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of
ordinary language philosophy.
In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the
Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize
in Literature. When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI was
affable but embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying, "You
have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally
adopted". Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply
"That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind.
In 1950, Russell attended the inaugural conference for the Congress
for Cultural Freedom, a CIA-funded anti-communist organisation
committed to the deployment of culture as a weapon during the Cold
War. Russell was one of the known patrons of the Congress until he
resigned in 1956.
In 1952, Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very
unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father
between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision
to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother). Russell
married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15
December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had
taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing a house
for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly. Edith remained
with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a
happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son John suffered from
mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between
Russell and his former wife Dora.
In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in
an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev,
Khrushchev assured him that the Soviet government would not be
reckless. Russell sent this telegram to President Kennedy:
According to historian Peter Knight, after JFK's assassination,
Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer Mark Lane in the
US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning
compatriots to form a 'Who Killed Kennedy committee' in June 1964,
members of which included Michael Foot MP, the wife of Tony Benn MP,
the publisher Victor Gollancz, the writers John Arden and J. B.
Priestley, and the Oxford history professor Hugh Trevor-Roper."
Russell published a highly critical article in 'The Minority of One'
weeks before the Warren Commission report was published, setting forth
'16 Questions on the Assassination.' Russell equated the Oswald case
with the Dreyfus affair of late 19th-century France, in which the
state convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticised the American
press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version.
Political causes
==================
Bertrand Russell was opposed to war from a young age; his opposition
to World War I was used as grounds for his dismissal from Trinity
College at Cambridge. This incident fused two of his controversial
causes, as he had failed to be granted fellow status which would have
protected him from firing, because he was not willing to either
pretend to be a devout Christian, or at least avoid admitting he was
agnostic.
He later described the resolution of these issues as essential to
freedom of thought and expression, citing the incident in Free Thought
and Official Propaganda, where he explained that the expression of any
idea, even the most obviously "bad", must be protected not only from
direct State intervention but also economic leveraging and other means
of being silenced:
Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in political causes
primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam War.
The 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear
disarmament and was signed by eleven of the most prominent nuclear
physicists and intellectuals of the time. In October 1960 "The
Committee of 100" was formed with a declaration by Russell and Michael
Scott, entitled "Act or Perish", which called for a "movement of
nonviolent resistance to nuclear war and weapons of mass destruction".
In September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed for seven days
in Brixton Prison for a "breach of the peace" after taking part in an
anti-nuclear demonstration in London. The magistrate offered to exempt
him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which
Russell replied: "No, I won't."
From 1966 to 1967, Russell worked with Jean-Paul Sartre and many other
intellectual figures to form the Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal
to investigate the conduct of the United States in Vietnam. He wrote
many letters to world leaders during this period.
Early in his life, Russell supported eugenicist policies. In 1894, he
proposed that the state issue certificates of health to prospective
parents and withhold public benefits from those considered unfit. In
1929, he wrote that people deemed "mentally defective" and
"feebleminded" should be sexually sterilised because they "are apt to
have enormous numbers of illegitimate children, all, as a rule, wholly
useless to the community." Russell was also an advocate of population
control:
On 20 November 1948, in a public speech at Westminster School,
addressing a gathering arranged by the New Commonwealth, Russell
shocked some observers by suggesting that a preemptive nuclear strike
on the Soviet Union was justified. Russell argued that war between the
United States and the Soviet Union seemed inevitable, so it would be a
humanitarian gesture to get it over with quickly and have the United
States in the dominant position. Currently, Russell argued, humanity
could survive such a war, whereas a full nuclear war after both sides
had manufactured large stockpiles of more destructive weapons was
likely to result in the extinction of the human race. Russell later
relented from this stance, instead arguing for mutual disarmament by
the nuclear powers.
In 1956, before and during the Suez Crisis, Russell expressed his
opposition to European imperialism in the Middle East. He viewed the
crisis as another reminder of the pressing need for an effective
mechanism for international governance, and to restrict national
sovereignty in places such as the Suez Canal area "where general
interest is involved". At the same time the Suez Crisis was taking
place, the world was also captivated by the Hungarian Revolution and
the subsequent crushing of the revolt by intervening Soviet forces.
Russell attracted criticism for speaking out fervently against the
Suez war while ignoring Soviet repression in Hungary, to which he
responded that he did not criticise the Soviets "because there was no
need. Most of the so-called Western World was fulminating". Although
he later feigned a lack of concern, at the time he was disgusted by
the brutal Soviet response, and on 16 November 1956, he expressed
approval for a declaration of support for Hungarian scholars which
Michael Polanyi had cabled to the Soviet embassy in London twelve days
previously, shortly after Soviet troops had entered Budapest.
In November 1957 Russell wrote an article addressing US President
Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, urging a
summit to consider "the conditions of co-existence". Khrushchev
responded that peace could be served by such a meeting. In January
1958 Russell elaborated his views in 'The Observer', proposing a
cessation of all nuclear weapons production, with the UK taking the
first step by unilaterally suspending its own nuclear weapons program
if necessary, and with Germany "freed from all alien armed forces and
pledged to neutrality in any conflict between East and West". US
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles replied for Eisenhower. The
exchange of letters was published as 'The Vital Letters of Russell,
Khrushchev, and Dulles'.
Russell was asked by 'The New Republic', a liberal American magazine,
to elaborate his views on world peace. He urged that all nuclear
weapons testing and flights by planes armed with nuclear weapons be
halted immediately, and negotiations be opened for the destruction of
all hydrogen bombs, with the number of conventional nuclear devices
limited to ensure a balance of power. He proposed that Germany be
reunified and accept the Oder-Neisse line as its border, and that a
neutral zone be established in Central Europe, consisting at the
minimum of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, with each of
these countries being free of foreign troops and influence, and
prohibited from forming alliances with countries outside the zone. In
the Middle East, Russell suggested that the West avoid opposing Arab
nationalism, and proposed the creation of a United Nations
peacekeeping force to guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel
was prevented from committing aggression and protected from it. He
also suggested Western recognition of the People's Republic of China,
and that it be admitted to the UN with a permanent seat on the UN
Security Council.
He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his
anti-war film 'Good Times, Wonderful Times' in the 1960s. He became a
hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left. In early 1963,
Russell became increasingly vocal in his disapproval of the Vietnam
War, and felt that the US government's policies there were
near-genocidal. In 1963, he became the inaugural recipient of the
Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of
the individual in society. In 1964, he was one of eleven world figures
who issued an appeal to Israel and the Arab countries to accept an
arms embargo and international supervision of nuclear plants and
rocket weaponry. In October 1965, he tore up his Labour Party card
because he suspected Harold Wilson's Labour government was going to
send troops to support the United States in Vietnam.
Final years, death and legacy
===============================
In June 1955, Russell had leased Plas Penrhyn in Penrhyndeudraeth,
Merionethshire, Wales and on 5 July of the following year it became
his and Edith's principal residence.
Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and
1969. He made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi
film 'Aman', by Mohan Kumar, which was released in India in 1967. This
was Russell's only appearance in a feature film.
On 23 November 1969, he wrote to 'The Times' newspaper saying that the
preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming".
The same month, he appealed to Secretary General U Thant of the United
Nations to support an international war crimes commission to
investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in South
Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to
Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the
Soviet Union of Writers.
On 31 January 1970, Russell issued a statement condemning "Israel's
aggression in the Middle East", and in particular, Israeli bombing
raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of the War
of Attrition, which he compared to German bombing raids in the Battle
of Britain and the US bombing of Vietnam. He called for an Israeli
withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War borders, stating "The aggression
committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has
the right to annexe foreign territory, but because every expansion is
an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will
tolerate." This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was
read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo
on 3 February 1970, the day after his death.
Russell died of influenza, just after 8 pm on 2 February 1970 at his
home in Penrhyndeudraeth, aged 97. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay
on 5 February 1970 with five people present. In accordance with his
will, there was no religious ceremony but one minute's silence; his
ashes were later scattered over the Welsh mountains. Although he was
born in Monmouthshire, and died in Penrhyndeudraeth in Wales, Russell
identified as English. Later in 1970, on 23 October, his will was
published showing he had left an estate valued at £69,423 (equivalent
to £0.069423 million in ). In 1980, a memorial to Russell was
commissioned by a committee including the philosopher A. J. Ayer. It
consists of a bust of Russell in Red Lion Square in London sculpted by
Marcelle Quinton.
Lady Katharine Jane Tait, Russell's daughter, founded the Bertrand
Russell Society in 1974 to preserve and understand his work. It
publishes the 'Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin', holds meetings and
awards prizes for scholarship, including the Bertrand Russell Society
Award. She also authored several essays about her father; as well as a
book, 'My Father, Bertrand Russell', which was published in 1975. All
members receive 'Russell: The Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies'.
For the sesquicentennial of his birth, in May 2022, McMaster
University's Bertrand Russell Archive, the university's largest and
most heavily used research collection, organised both a physical and
virtual exhibition on Russell's anti-nuclear stance in the post-war
era,
[
https://expo.mcmaster.ca/s/scientists-for-peace/page/scientists-for-peace-introduction
'Scientists' 'for Peace: the Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the
Pugwash Conference'], which included the earliest version of the
Russell-Einstein Manifesto. The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation held
a commemoration at Conway Hall in Red Lion Square, London, on 18 May,
the anniversary of his birth. For its part, on the same day, 'La
Estrella de Panamá' published a biographical sketch by Francisco Díaz
Montilla, who commented that "[if he] had to characterize Russell's
work in one sentence [he] would say: criticism and rejection of
dogmatism."
Bangladesh's first leader, Mujibur Rahman, named his youngest son
Sheikh Russel in honour of Bertrand Russell.
Marriages and issue
======================================================================
In 1889, Russell, at 17 years of age, met the family of Alys Pearsall
Smith, an American Quaker five years his senior, who was a graduate of
Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia. He became a friend of the
Pearsall Smith family. They knew him as "Lord John's grandson" and
enjoyed showing him off.
He fell in love with Alys, and contrary to his grandmother's wishes,
married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in
1901 when it occurred to Russell, while cycling, that he no longer
loved her. She asked him if he loved her, and he cruelly replied that
he did not. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her
controlling and cruel. A lengthy period of separation began in 1911
with Russell's affair with Lady Ottoline Morrell, and he and Alys
finally divorced in 1921 to enable Russell to remarry.
During his years of separation from Alys, Russell had affairs (often
simultaneous) with a number of women, including Morrell and the
actress Lady Constance Malleson. Some have suggested that at this
point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess
and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot.
In 1921, his second marriage was to Dora Winifred Black MBE (died
1986), daughter of Sir Frederick Black. Dora was six months pregnant
when the couple returned to England.
This was dissolved in 1935, having produced two children:
* John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell (1921-1987)
* Lady Katharine Jane Russell (1923-2021), who married Rev. Charles
Tait in 1948 and had issue
Russell's third marriage was to Patricia Helen Spence (died 2004) in
1936, with the marriage producing one child:
* Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell (1937-2004), who
became a historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal
Democrat party.
Russell's third marriage ended in divorce in 1952. He married Edith
Finch in the same year. They remained married at the time of his death
in 1972, and Finch subsequently died in 1978.
Titles, awards and honours
======================================================================
Upon his brother's death in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell
of Kingston Russell, and the subsidiary title of Viscount Amberley of
Amberley and of Ardsalla. He held both titles, and the accompanying
seat in the House of Lords, until his death in 1970.
Honours and awards
====================
Country Date Award
| || **1932** || De Morgan Medal
| || **1934** || Sylvester Medal
| || **1949** || Order of Merit
| || **1950** || Nobel Prize in Literature
| || **1957** || Kalinga Prize
| || **1963** || Jerusalem Prize
Scholastic
============
Date School/Association Award/Position
| **1893** || Trinity College, Cambridge || First Class Honours in
Mathematics
| **1894** || Trinity College, Cambridge || First Class Honours in
Philosophy
| **1895** || Trinity College, Cambridge || Fellowship
| **1896** || London School of Economics and Political Science ||
Lecturer
| **1899, 1901, 1910, 1915** || Trinity College, Cambridge ||
Lecturer
| **1908** || The Royal Society || Fellowship
| **1911** || Aristotelian Society || President
| **1938** || University of Chicago || Visiting Professor of
Philosophy
| **1939** || University of California at Los Angeles || Professor of
Philosophy
| **1941-42** || Barnes Foundation || Lecturer
| **1944-49** || Trinity College, Cambridge || Fellowship
| **1949** || Trinity College, Cambridge || Lifetime Fellowship
Philosophy
============
Russell is credited with being one of the founders of analytic
philosophy. He was impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), and
wrote on major areas of philosophy except aesthetics. He was prolific
in the fields of metaphysics, logic and the philosophy of mathematics,
the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand
Blanshard asked Russell why he did not write on aesthetics, Russell
replied that he did not know anything about it, though he hastened to
add "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has
not deterred me from writing on other subjects".
On ethics, Russell wrote that he was a utilitarian in his youth, yet
he later distanced himself from this view.
For the advancement of science and protection of liberty of
expression, Russell advocated The Will to Doubt, the recognition that
all human knowledge is at most a best guess, that one should always
remember:
Religion
==========
Russell described himself in 1947 as an agnostic or an atheist: he
found it difficult to determine which term to adopt, saying: For most
of his adult life, Russell maintained religion to be little more than
superstition and, despite any positive effects, largely harmful to
people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to
impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and to be responsible
for much of our world's wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member
of the advisory council of the British Humanist Association and the
president of Cardiff Humanists until his death.
Society
=========
Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most
of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of
his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name
to various causes. He was a prominent campaigner against Western
intervention into the Vietnam War in the 1960s, writing essays and
books, attending demonstrations, and even organising the Russell
Tribunal in 1966 alongside other prominent philosophers such as
Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, which fed into his 1967 book
'War Crimes in Vietnam.'
Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be
abolished, population growth would be limited, and prosperity would be
shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world
government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that
will redeem mankind is co-operation". He was one of the signatories of
the agreement to convene a convention for drafting a world
constitution. As a result, for the first time in human history, a
World Constituent Assembly convened to draft and adopt the
Constitution for the Federation of Earth. Russell also expressed
support for guild socialism, and commented positively on several
socialist thinkers and activists. According to Jean Bricmont and
Normand Baillargeon, "Russell was both a liberal and a socialist, a
combination that was perfectly comprehensible in his time, but which
has become almost unthinkable today. He was a liberal in that he
opposed concentrations of power in all its manifestations, military,
governmental, or religious, as well as the superstitious or
nationalist ideas that usually serve as its justification. But he was
also a socialist, even as an extension of his liberalism, because he
was equally opposed to the concentrations of power stemming from the
private ownership of the major means of production, which therefore
needed to be put under social control (which does not mean state
control)."
Russell was an active supporter of the Homosexual Law Reform Society,
being one of the signatories of A. E. Dyson's 1958 letter to 'The
Times' calling for a change in the law regarding male homosexual
practices, which were partly legalised in 1967, when Russell was still
alive.
He expressed sympathy and support for the Palestinian people and was
critical of Israel's actions. He wrote in 1960 that, "I think it was a
mistake to establish a Jewish State in Palestine, but it would be a
still greater mistake to try to get rid of it now that it exists." In
his final written document, read aloud in Cairo three days after his
death on 31 January 1970, he condemned Israel as an aggressive
imperialist power, which "wishes to consolidate with the least
difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest
becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which
ignores the injustice of the previous aggression." In regards to the
Palestinian people and refugees, he wrote that, "No people anywhere in
the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country;
how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment
which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just settlement of the
refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine
settlement in the Middle East."
Russell advocated for a universal basic income. In his 1918 book
'Roads to Freedom', Russell wrote that "Anarchism has the advantage as
regards liberty, Socialism as regards the inducement to work.
Can we not find a method of combining these two advantages? It
seems to me that we can. [...] Stated in more familiar terms, the plan
we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small
income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether
they work or not, and that a larger income - as much larger as might
be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced - should be
given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the
community recognizes as useful...When education is finished, no one
should be compelled to work, and those who choose not to work should
receive a bare livelihood and be left completely free."
In "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday" ("Postscript" in his
'Autobiography'), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a
vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble,
for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight
to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination
the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and
where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish
them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has
left me unshaken".
Freedom of opinion and expression
===================================
Russell supported freedom of opinion and was an opponent of both
censorship and indoctrination. In 1928, he wrote: "The fundamental
argument for freedom of opinion is the doubtfulness of all our
belief... when the State intervenes to ensure the indoctrination of
some doctrine, it does so because there is no conclusive evidence in
favour of that doctrine ... It is clear that thought is not free if
the profession of certain opinions make it impossible to make a
living". In 1957, he wrote: "'Free thought' means thinking freely ...
to be worthy of the name freethinker he must be free of two things:
the force of tradition and the tyranny of his own passions."
Selected works
======================================================================
Below are selected Russell's works in English, sorted by year of first
publication:
* 1896. 'German Social Democracy'. London: Longmans, Green & Co.
* 1897. 'An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry'. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press
* 1900. 'A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz'.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
* 1903. 'The Principles of Mathematics'. Cambridge University Press
* 1903. 'A Free man's worship, and other essays'.
* 1905. 'On Denoting', 'Mind', Vol. 14. . Basil Blackwell
* 1910. 'Philosophical Essays'. London: Longmans, Green
* 1910-1913. 'Principia Mathematica.' (with Alfred North Whitehead). 3
vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
* 1912. 'The Problems of Philosophy'. London: Williams and Norgate
* 1914. 'Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific
Method in Philosophy'. Chicago and London: Open Court Publishing.
* 1916. 'Principles of Social Reconstruction'. London, George Allen
and Unwin
* 1916. 'Why Men Fight'. New York: The Century Co
* 1916. 'The Policy of the Entente, 1904-1914: a reply to Professor
Gilbert Murray'. Manchester: The National Labour Press
* 1916. 'Justice in War-time'. Chicago: Open Court
* 1917. 'Political Ideals'. New York: The Century Co.
* 1918. 'Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1918. 'Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism, and
Syndicalism'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1919. 'Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy'. London: George
Allen & Unwin. ( for Routledge paperback)
* 1920. 'The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1921. 'The Analysis of Mind'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1922. 'The Problem of China'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1922. 'Free Thought and Official Propaganda', delivered at South
Place Institute
* 1923. 'The Prospects of Industrial Civilization', in collaboration
with Dora Russell. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1923. 'The ABC of Atoms', London: Kegan Paul. Trench, Trubner
* 1924. 'Icarus; or, The Future of Science'. London: Kegan Paul,
Trench, Trubner
* 1925. 'The ABC of Relativity'. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner
(revised and edited by Felix Pirani)
* 1925. 'What I Believe'. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner
* 1926. 'On Education, Especially in Early Childhood'. London: George
Allen & Unwin
* 1927. 'The Analysis of Matter'. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner
* 1927. 'An Outline of Philosophy'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1927. 'Why I Am Not a Christian'. London: Watts
* 1927. 'Selected Papers of Bertrand Russell'. New York: Modern
Library
* 1928. 'Sceptical Essays'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1929. 'Marriage and Morals'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1930. 'The Conquest of Happiness'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1931. 'The Scientific Outlook', London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1932. 'Education and the Social Order', London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1934. 'Freedom and Organization, 1814-1914'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1935. 'In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1935. 'Religion and Science'. London: Thornton Butterworth
* 1936. 'Which Way to Peace?'. London: Jonathan Cape
* 1937. 'The Amberley Papers: The Letters and Diaries of Lord and Lady
Amberley', with Patricia Russell, 2 vols., London: Leonard &
Virginia Woolf at the Hogarth Press; reprinted (1966) as 'The Amberley
Papers. Bertrand Russell's Family Background', 2 vols., London: George
Allen & Unwin
* 1938. 'Power: A New Social Analysis'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1940. 'An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth'. New York: W. W. Norton
& Company.
* 1945. 'The Bomb and Civilisation'. Published in the 'Glasgow
Forward' on 18 August 1945
* 1946. 'A History of Western Philosophy and Its Connection with
Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the
Present Day' New York: Simon and Schuster
* 1948. 'Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1949. 'Authority and the Individual'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1950. '. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1951. 'New Hopes for a Changing World'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1952. 'The Impact of Science on Society'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1953. 'Satan in the Suburbs and Other Stories'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1954. 'Human Society in Ethics and Politics'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1954. 'Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories'. London:
George Allen & Unwin
* 1956. 'Portraits from Memory and Other Essays'. London: George Allen
& Unwin
* 1956. 'Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950', edited by Robert C.
Marsh. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1957. 'Why I Am Not A Christian and Other Essays on Religion and
Related Subjects', edited by Paul Edwards. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1958. 'Understanding History and Other Essays'. New York:
Philosophical Library
* 1958. 'The Will to Doubt'. New York: Philosophical Library
* 1959. 'Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1959. 'My Philosophical Development'. London: George Allen &
Unwin
* 1959. 'Wisdom of the West: A Historical Survey of Western Philosophy
in Its Social and Political Setting', edited by Paul Foulkes. London:
Macdonald
* 1960. 'Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind', Cleveland and New York:
World Publishing Company
* 1961. 'The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell', edited by R. E.
Egner and L. E. Denonn. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1961. 'Fact and Fiction'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1961. 'Has Man a Future?' London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1963. 'Essays in Skepticism'. New York: Philosophical Library
* 1963. 'Unarmed Victory'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1965. 'Legitimacy Versus Industrialism, 1814-1848'. London: George
Allen & Unwin (first published as Parts I and II of 'Freedom and
Organization, 1814-1914', 1934)
* 1965. 'On the Philosophy of Science', edited by Charles A. Fritz,
Jr. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company
* 1966. 'The ABC of Relativity'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1967. 'Russell's Peace Appeals', edited by Tsutomu Makino and
Kazuteru Hitaka. Japan: Eichosha's New Current Books
* 1967. 'War Crimes in Vietnam'. London: George Allen & Unwin
* 1951-1969. 'The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell', 3 vols., London:
George Allen & Unwin. Vol. 2, 1956
* 1969. 'Dear Bertrand Russell... A Selection of his Correspondence
with the General Public 1950-1968', edited by Barry Feinberg and
Ronald Kasrils. London: George Allen and Unwin
Russell was the author of more than sixty books and over two thousand
articles. Additionally, he wrote many pamphlets, introductions, and
letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, ''I Appeal unto Caesar':
The Case of the Conscientious Objectors', ghostwritten for Margaret
Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Hobhouse,
allegedly helped secure the release from prison of hundreds of
conscientious objectors.
His works can be found in anthologies and collections, including 'The
Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell', which McMaster University began
publishing in 1983. By March 2017, this collection of his shorter and
previously unpublished works included 18 volumes, and several more are
in progress. A bibliography in three additional volumes catalogues his
publications. The Russell Archives held by McMaster's William Ready
Division of Archives and Research Collections possess over 40,000 of
his letters.
See also
======================================================================
* Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
* Criticism of Jesus
* Joseph Conrad (Russell's impression)
* List of peace activists
* List of pioneers in computer science
* 'Logicomix', a graphic novel about the foundational quest in
mathematics, the narrator of the story being Bertrand Russell and with
his life as the main storyline
* Information Research Department
* Type theory
* Type system
Primary sources
=================
* 1900, 'Sur la logique des relations avec des applications à la
théorie des séries', 'Rivista di matematica 7': 115-148.
* 1901, 'On the Notion of Order', 'Mind (n.s.) 10': 35-51.
* 1902, (with Alfred North Whitehead), 'On Cardinal Numbers',
'American Journal of Mathematics 24': 367-384.
* 1948, BBC Reith Lectures: Authority and the Individual A series of
six radio lectures broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1948.
Secondary sources
===================
* John Newsome Crossley. 'A Note on Cantor's Theorem and Russell's
Paradox', 'Australian Journal of Philosophy' 51, 1973, 70-71.
* Ivor Grattan-Guinness. 'The Search for Mathematical Roots
1870-1940'. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
* Alan Ryan. 'Bertrand Russell: A Political Life', New York: Oxford
University Press, 1981.
Books about Russell's philosophy
==================================
* Alfred Julius Ayer. 'Russell', London: Fontana, 1972. . A lucid
summary exposition of Russell's thought.
* Elizabeth Ramsden Eames. 'Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge',
London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969. . A clear description of
Russell's philosophical development.
* Celia Green. 'The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-Body Problem',
Oxford: Oxford Forum, 2003. Contains a sympathetic analysis of
Russell's views on causality.
* A. C. Grayling. 'Russell: A Very Short Introduction', Oxford
University Press, 2002.
* Nicholas Griffin. 'Russell's Idealist Apprenticeship', Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1991.
* A. D. Irvine, ed. 'Bertrand Russell: Critical Assessments', 4
volumes, London: Routledge, 1999. Consists of essays on Russell's work
by many distinguished philosophers.
* Michael K. Potter. 'Bertrand Russell's Ethics', Bristol: Thoemmes
Continuum, 2006. A clear and accessible explanation of Russell's moral
philosophy.
* P. A. Schilpp, ed. 'The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell', Evanston
and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1944.
* John Slater. 'Bertrand Russell', Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1994.
Biographical books
====================
* A. J. Ayer. 'Bertrand Russell', New York: Viking Press, 1972,
reprint ed. London: University of Chicago Press, 1988,
* Andrew Brink. 'Bertrand Russell: A Psychobiography of a Moralist',
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press International, Inc., 1989,
* Ronald W. Clark. 'The Life of Bertrand Russell', London: Jonathan
Cape, 1975,
* Ronald W. Clark. 'Bertrand Russell and His World', London: Thames
& Hudson, 1981,
* Rupert Crawshay-Williams. 'Russell Remembered', London: Oxford
University Press, 1970. Written by a close friend of Russell's
* John Lewis.
'[
https://archive.org/details/bertrandrussellphilosopherhumanist
Bertrand Russell: Philosopher and Humanist]', London: Lawerence &
Wishart, 1968
* Ray Monk. 'Bertrand Russell: Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares',
London: Phoenix, 1997,
* Ray Monk. 'Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude, 1872-1920' Vol.
I, New York: Routledge, 1997,
* Ray Monk. 'Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness, 1921-1970' Vol.
II, New York: Routledge, 2001,
* Caroline Moorehead. 'Bertrand Russell: A Life', New York: Viking,
1993,
* George Santayana. "Bertrand Russell", in 'Selected Writings of
George Santayana', Norman Henfrey (ed.), Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, I, 1968, pp. 326-329
* Peter Stone et al. '[
https://vernonpress.com/title?id=219 Bertrand
Russell's Life and Legacy]'. Wilmington: Vernon Press, 2017.
* Katharine Tait. 'My Father Bertrand Russell', New York: Thoemmes
Press, 1975
* Alan Wood, '[
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.114739
Bertrand Russell: The Passionate Sceptic]', London: George Allen &
Unwin, 1957.
External links
======================================================================
*
*
*
*
*
*
* [
https://bertrandrussellsociety.org/ The Bertrand Russell Society]
* [
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04qgxlv BBC 'Face to Face'
interview] with Bertrand Russell and John Freeman, broadcast 4 March
1959
* including the Nobel Lecture, 11 December 1950 "What Desires Are
Politically Important?"
* [
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0017cfb Interview with Ray Monk]
at 'Today', 18 May 2022 (from 2:58:35)
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