History of Western philosophy
Western philosophy
Pre-Socratic · Ancient Medieval · Renaissance · Modern Contemporary 16th · 17th · 18th · 19th · 20th Century
See also
Religious philosophy Christian · Jewish  · Islamic  · Hindu  · Buddhist
Eastern philosophy Babylonian · Indian · Iranian Chinese · Japanese · Korean
Western culture · Western world
v t e

Western philosophy is the philosophical thought and work of the Western or Occidental world, as distinct from Eastern or Oriental philosophies and the varieties of indigenous philosophies.

Historically, the term was recently invented to refer to the philosophical thinking of Western civilization, beginning with Greek philosophy in ancient Greece, and eventually covering a large area of the globe. The word philosophy itself originated in ancient Greece: philosophia (φιλοσοφία), literally, "the love of wisdom" (φιλεῖν - philein "to love" and σοφία - sophia "wisdom", in the sense of knowledge).

Origins[link]

The scope of philosophy in the ancient understanding, and the writings of (at least some of) the ancient philosophers, were all intellectual endeavors. This included the problems of philosophy as they are understood today; but it also included many other disciplines, such as pure mathematics and natural sciences such as physics, astronomy, and biology (Aristotle, for example, wrote on all of these topics.) The term "Western philosophy" is at times unhelpful and vague, since the definition involves a vast variety of distinct traditions, political groups, religious groups, and individual writers over thousands of years.

Western philosophical subdisciplines[link]

Western philosophers have often divided into several major branches based on the questions typically addressed by people working in different parts of the field. In the ancient world, the most influential division of the subject was the Stoics' division of philosophy into Logic, Ethics, and Physics (conceived as the study of the nature of the world, and including both natural science and metaphysics). In contemporary philosophy, specialties within the field are more commonly divided into metaphysics, epistemology, ethics and aesthetics (the latter two of which together comprise axiology). Logic is sometimes included as a main branch of philosophy, sometimes as a separate science philosophers happen to work on, and sometimes just as a characteristically philosophical method applying to all branches of philosophy.

Within these broad branches there are now numerous sub-disciplines of philosophy. At the broadest level there is the division between Analytic and Continental Philosophy. For Continental Philosophy subdividing philosophy between "experts" is problematic for the very nature of the unifying task of philosophy itself; however, for most of Analytic Philosophy further divisions simplify the task for philosophers in each area.

The interest in particular sub-disciplines waxes and wanes over time; sometimes sub-disciplines become particularly hot topics and can occupy so much space in the literature that they almost seem like major branches in their own right. (Over the past 40 years or so philosophy of mind—which is, strictly speaking, mainly a sub-discipline of metaphysics—has taken on this position within Analytic philosophy, and has attracted so much attention that some suggest philosophy of mind as the paradigm for what contemporary Analytic philosophers do.)

Philosophy contrasted with other disciplines[link]

Natural science[link]

Originally the term "philosophy" was applied to all intellectual endeavours. Aristotle studied what would now be called biology, meteorology, physics, and cosmology, alongside his metaphysics and ethics. Even in the eighteenth century physics and chemistry were still classified as "natural philosophy", that is, the philosophical study of nature. Today these latter subjects are popularly referred to as sciences, and as separate from philosophy. But the distinction is not clear; some philosophers still contend that science retains an unbroken — and unbreakable — link to philosophy.

More recently, psychology, economics, sociology, and linguistics were once the domain of philosophers insofar as they were studied at all, but now have only a weaker connection with the field. In the late twentieth century cognitive science and artificial intelligence could be seen as being forged in part out of "philosophy of mind."

Philosophy is done primarily through reflection. It does not tend to rely on experiment. However, in some ways philosophy is close to science in its character and method; some Analytic philosophers have suggested that the method of philosophical analysis allows philosophers to emulate the methods of natural science; Quine holds that philosophy does no more than clarify the arguments and claims of other sciences. This suggests that philosophy might be the study of meaning and reasoning generally; but some still would claim either that this is not a science, or that if it is it ought not to be pursued by philosophers.

All these views have something in common: whatever philosophy essentially is or is concerned with, it tends on the whole to proceed more "abstractly" than most (or most other) natural sciences. It does not depend as much on experience and experiment, and does not contribute as directly to technology. It clearly would be a mistake to identify philosophy with any one natural science; whether it can be identified with science very broadly construed is still an open question.

This is an active discipline pursued by both trained philosophers and scientists. Philosophers often refer to, and interpret, experimental work of various kinds (as in philosophy of physics and philosophy of psychology). But this is not surprising: such branches of philosophy aim at philosophical understanding of experimental work. It is not the philosophers in their capacity as philosophers, who perform the experiments and formulate the scientific theories under study. Philosophy of science should not be confused with science it studies any more than biology should be confused with plants and animals.

Theology and religious studies[link]

Like philosophy, most religious studies are not experimental. Parts of theology, including questions about the existence and nature of gods, clearly overlap with philosophy of religion. Aristotle considered theology a branch of metaphysics, the central field of philosophy, and most philosophers prior to the twentieth century have devoted significant effort to theological questions. So the two are not unrelated. But other part of religious studies, such as the comparison of different world religions, can be easily distinguished from philosophy in just the way that any other social science can be distinguished from philosophy. These are closer to history and sociology, and involve specific observations of particular phenomena, here particular religious practices.

The Empiricist tradition in modern philosophy often held that religious questions are beyond the scope of human knowledge, and many have claimed that religious language is literally meaningless: there are not even questions to be answered. Some philosophers have felt that these difficulties in evidence were irrelevant, and have argued for, against, or just about religious beliefs on moral or other grounds. Nonetheless, in the main stream of twentieth century philosophy there were very few philosophers who give serious consideration to religious questions.

Mathematics[link]

Mathematics uses very specific, rigorous methods of proof that philosophers sometimes (only rarely) try to emulate. Most philosophy is written in ordinary prose, and while it strives to be precise it does not usually attain anything like mathematical clarity. As a result, mathematicians hardly ever disagree about results, while philosophers of course do disagree about their results, as well as their methods.

The philosophy of mathematics is a branch of philosophy of science; but in many ways mathematics has a special relationship to philosophy. This is because the study of logic is a central branch of philosophy, and mathematics is a paradigm example of logic. In the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries logic made great advances, and mathematics has been proven to be reducible to logic (at least, to first-order logic with some set theory). The use of formal, mathematical logic in philosophy now resembles the use of maths in science, although it is not as frequent.

Further reading[link]

• Kenny, Anthony. A New History of Western Philosophy (Oxford University Press; 2011) 1,058 pages

See also[link]

Philosophy portal

• Analytic philosophy
• Continental philosophy
• French philosophy
• German philosophy
• Polish philosophy
• American philosophy
• Eastern philosophy
• Glossary of philosophical isms
• History of philosophy
• List of philosophers
• List of philosophical theories
• Index of philosophy
• List of philosophies
• Philosophy
• Pseudophilosophy

External links[link]

• Philosophy Forums
• Philosophy Sites on the Internet - Tel Aviv University list
• The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• The Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Glyn Hughes' Squashed Philosophers - abridged versions of classic philosophy texts.
• Philosophy Wiki
• Short History of Western Philosophy, A, by Johannes Hirschberger; edited by Clare Hay; ISBN 978-0-7188-3092-2

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell

Born	(1872-05-18)18 May 1872 Trellech, Monmouthshire, UK
Died	2 February 1970(1970-02-02) (aged 97) Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, UK
Era	20th century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy Nobel Prize in Literature 1950
Main interests	Metaphysics epistemology logic mathematics philosophy of language philosophy of science ethics philosophy of religion history of philosophy
Notable ideas	Analytic philosophy · Logical atomism · theory of descriptions · knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description · Russell's paradox · Russell's teapot
Influenced by Mill · Peano · Frege · Santayana · Leibniz · Hume · Locke · Wittgenstein · Spinoza · Whitehead
Influenced Wittgenstein · Ayer · Carnap · Gödel · Popper · Quine · Chomsky · Austin · Kripke · Schlick · Tarski · Waismann · Davidson · Eddington · Turing · Vuillemin · McDowell · Kumar · Albert Ellis
Signature

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS^[1] (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic.^[2] At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense.^[3] He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.^[4]

Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege and his friend Ludwig Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians.^[2] He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy."^[5] His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.

Russell was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism^[6][7] and went to prison for his pacifism during World War I.^[8] Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the United States of America's involvement in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament.^[9]

A prolific commentator on religion, Russell—along with others such as Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and Friedrich Nietzsche—advanced a "new school of thought" that Greg Epstein calls "antagonistic atheism", which was "the view that religion was a thing of the past and ought to be brought hastily toward a point of declining influence".^[10] 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."^[11]

Biography[link]

Ancestry[link]

Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy.^[12] His paternal grandfather, John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, was the third son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and had twice been asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s.^[13]

Bertrand Russell's father, John Russell, Viscount Amberley

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. They established themselves as one of Britain's leading Whig families, and participated in every great political event from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536–40 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–89 and the Great Reform Act in 1832.^[13][14]

Russell's mother, Katharine Louisa (1844–1874), was the daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley, and the sister of Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle.^[9] Kate and Rosalind's mother was one of the founders of Girton College, Cambridge.^[15]

Russell's parents were radical for their times. Russell's father, Viscount Amberley, was an atheist and 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.^[16] John Russell's atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather.^[17] Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life.

Childhood and adolescence[link]

Russell had two siblings: Frank (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), and 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 following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly Victorian grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His grandfather, who had been Prime Minister, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the dominant family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth.^[9][16]

The countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and successfully 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' (Exodus 23:2), 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 very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide.^[18] He was educated at home by a series of tutors.^[11] His brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life.^[16][19]

During these formative years he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his autobiography, he writes: "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."^[20] Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, and by 18 had decided to discard the last of it.^[21]

University and first marriage[link]

Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced his studies there in 1890.^[22] 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 quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as a high Wrangler in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895.^[23][24]

Russell first met the American Quaker Alys Pearsall Smith when he was 17 years old. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as 'Lord John's grandson' and enjoyed showing him off—and travelled with them to the continent; it was in their company that Russell visited the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and was able to climb the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed.^[25]

He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, 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 he was cycling, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage and they finally divorced in 1921, after a lengthy period of separation.^[26] During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell^[27] and the actress Lady Constance Malleson.^[28]

Early career[link]

Russell in 1907.

Russell began his published work in 1896 with German Social Democracy, a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics, where he also lectured on the science of power in the autumn of 1937.^[29] He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.^[30]

He now started an intensive study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity, during which he discovered Russell's paradox, which challenged the foundations of set theory. In 1903 he published his first important book on mathematical logic, The Principles of Mathematics, arguing that mathematics could be deduced from a very small number of principles, a work which contributed significantly to the cause of logicism.^[31]

In 1905 he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal Mind. Russell became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908.^[1][9] The first of three volumes of Principia Mathematica, written with Whitehead, was published in 1910, which, along with the earlier The Principles of Mathematics, soon made Russell world famous in his field.

In 1910 he became a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, where he was approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, who became his PhD student. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a genius and a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair. This was often 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.^[32] Russell delivered his lectures on Logical Atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of the First World War. Wittgenstein was still a prisoner of war.

First World War[link]

During the First World War, Russell was one of the very few people to engage in active pacifist activities,^[33] and in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act.

He was charged a fine of £100, which he refused to pay, hoping that he would be sent to prison, However, 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."

Russell was released from prison in September 1918.^{[clarification needed]} He was reinstated in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer 1926, and became a Fellow again 1944–1949.^[34] A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the US to enter the war on Britain's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison (see Bertrand Russell's views on society).^[35]

Between the wars and second marriage[link]

In August 1920 Russell travelled to Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution.^[36] He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin rather disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down the Volga on a steamship. Russell's lover, Dora Black, visited Russia independently at the same time—she was enthusiastic about the revolution, but Russell's experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for it. He wrote a book The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism^[37] about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from Britain, all of whom came home thinking well of the regime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told them that he heard shots fired in the middle of the night and was sure these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained that it was only cars backfiring.

Russell subsequently lectured in Beijing on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora. He went there with optimism and hope, as China was then on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included Rabindranath Tagore, the Nobel laureate Indian poet.^[11] While in China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press.^[38] When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora notified the world that "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists." The press, not appreciating the sarcasm, were not amused.^[39]

Dora was six months pregnant when the couple returned to England on 26 August 1921. Russell arranged a hasty divorce from Alys, marrying Dora six days after the divorce was finalised, on 27 September 1921. Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, born on 16 November 1921, and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait), born on 29 December 1923. Russell supported himself during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, first wife of T. S. Eliot.^[40]

Together with Dora, he 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. On 8 July 1930 Dora gave birth to her third child, a daughter, Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943.^[41][42]

Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell. He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms.

Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry.^[42] 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 prominent historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democratic party.^[9]

During the 1930s, Russell became a close friend and collaborator of V.K. Krishna Menon, then secretary of the India League, the foremost lobby for Indian independence in Great Britain.

Second World War[link]

Russell opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany, but in 1940 changed his 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, "Relative Political Pacifism": war was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils.^[43]

Before the Second World War, 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 in 1940, but after a public outcry, the appointment was annulled by a court judgement: his opinions (especially those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals ten years earlier) made him "morally unfit" to teach at the college. The protest was started by the mother of a student who would not have been eligible for his graduate-level course in mathematical logic. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested against his treatment.^[44] Albert Einstein's often-quoted aphorism that "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds ... " originated in his open letter in support of Russell, during this time.^[45] Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case. He 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 Britain in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.^[46]

Later life[link]

During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly The Brains Trust and the Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was world famous outside of academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (among a total of 43 passengers) in 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.^[47] A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life.

In a speech in 1948,^[48] 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 atom bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its 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. Others, including Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe.^[47]

In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures^[49]—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled Authority and the Individual,^[50] 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 only ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy.^[51]

In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit,^[52] and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[9][11] When he was given the Order of Merit, King George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying that "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted."^[53] Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind.

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 serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora. John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters^{[citation needed]}(two of whom were later found to have schizophrenia).

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.^[54] Russell also wrote to John F. Kennedy, who returned his telegram unopened.^{[citation needed]}

According to historian Peter Knight, after the John F. Kennedy 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 weeks before the Warren Commission Report was published, setting forth 16 Questions on the Assassination and equating the Oswald case with the Dreyfus affair of late 19th century France, in which the state wrongly convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticized the American press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version.^[55]

Political causes[link]

Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in various political causes, primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam war (see also Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal). The 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by 11 of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time.^[56] He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period. 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, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal about his disapproval of what he felt to be the US government's near-genocidal policies in South Vietnam. In 1963 he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society.^[57] In October 1965 he tore up his Labour Party card because he suspected the party was going to send soldiers to support the US in the Vietnam War.^[9]

Final years and death[link]

Bust of Russell in Red Lion Square

Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. 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 US in South Vietnam. The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Writers Union.

On 31 January 1970 Russell issued a statement which condemned Israeli aggression in the Middle East and called for Israeli withdrawal from the Israeli-occupied territories. 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.^[58]

Russell died of influenza on 2 February 1970 at his home, Plas Penrhyn, in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year.

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.^[59]

Titles and honours from birth[link]

Russell held throughout his life the following styles and honours:

• from birth until 1908: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell
• from 1908 until 1931: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell, FRS
• from 1931 until 1949: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, FRS
• from 1949 until death: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, OM, FRS

Views[link]

part of a series on
Bertrand Russell
Russell in 1916
Views on philosophy Views on society Russell's paradox Russell's teapot Theory of Descriptions Logical atomism
v t e

Views on philosophy[link]

Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. He was particularly prolific in the field of metaphysics, the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects."^[60]

Views on religion[link]

Russell described himself both as an agnostic^[61] and an atheist. For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed religion and the religious outlook (he considered communism and other systematic ideologies to be forms of religion) serve to impede knowledge, foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of the war, oppression, and misery that have beset the world. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death.^[62]

Views on society[link]

Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life, which makes his prodigious and seminal writing on a wide range of technical and non-technical subjects all the more remarkable. 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 noted for saying "No one can sit at the bedside of a dying child and still believe in God."^[63]

Russell determined man to be "the product of causes ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms, that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand ... "^[64]

Selected works[link]

Selected bibliography of Russell's books[link]

This is a selected bibliography of Russell's books in English sorted by year of first publication.

• 1896. German Social Democracy. London: Longmans, Green.
• 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.
• 1905. On Denoting, Mind, vol. 14. ISSN: 00264425. 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. Why Men Fight. New York: The Century Co.
• 1916. Justice in War-time. Chicago: Open Court.
• 1917. Political Ideals. New York: The Century Co.
• 1918. Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays. London: Longmans, Green.
• 1918. Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• 1919. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin. (ISBN 0-415-09604-9 for Routledge paperback) (Copy at Archive.org).
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. London: George Allen & Unwin. (on refusal of work)
• 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.
• 1938. Power: A New Social Analysis. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• 1940. An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.
• 1945. 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. Unpopular Essays. 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.
• 1959. Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• 1959. My Philosophical Development. London: George Allen & Unwin.
• 1959. Wisdom of the West, 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. On the Philosophy of Science, edited by Charles A. Fritz, Jr. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
• 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 also wrote many pamphlets, introductions, articles, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, I Appeal unto Caesar: the case of the conscientious objectors, ghost written for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse helped to secure the release of hundreds of CO's from prison.^[65]

His works can be found in anthologies and collections, perhaps most notably The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, which McMaster University began publishing in 1983. This collection of his shorter and previously unpublished works is now up to 16 volumes, and many more are forthcoming. An additional three volumes catalogue just his bibliography. The Russell Archives at McMaster University possess over 30,000 of his letters.

See also[link]

• Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club

Notes[link]

Additional references[link]

Russell[link]

• 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 23: 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 references[link]

• John Newsome Crossley. A Note on Cantor's Theorem and Russell's Paradox, Australian Journal of Philosophy 51: 70–71.
• Ivor Grattan-Guinness, 2000. The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870–1940. Princeton University Press.
• Bertrand Russell: A Political Life by Alan Ryan 1981

Books about Russell's philosophy[link]

• Bertrand Russell: Critical Assessments, edited by A. D. Irvine, 4 volumes, London: Routledge, 1999. Consists of essays on Russell's work by many distinguished philosophers.
• Bertrand Russell, by John Slater, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1994.
• Bertrand Russell's Ethics. by Michael K. Potter, Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006. A clear and accessible explanation of Russell's moral philosophy.
• The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, edited by P.A. Schilpp, Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1944.
• Russell, by A. J. Ayer, London: Fontana, 1972. ISBN 0-00-632965-9. A lucid summary exposition of Russell's thought.
• The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-Body Problem, by Celia Green. Oxford: Oxford Forum, 2003. ISBN 0-9536772-1-4 Contains a sympathetic analysis of Russell's views on causality.
• Russell's Idealist Apprenticeship, by Nicholas Griffin. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.

Biographical books[link]

• Bertrand Russell: Philosopher and Humanist, by John Lewis (1968)
• Bertrand Russell, by A. J. Ayer (1972), reprint ed. 1988: ISBN 0-226-03343-0
• My father Bertrand Russell, by Katharine Tait (1975)
• The Life of Bertrand Russell, by Ronald W. Clark (1975) ISBN 0-394-49059-2
• Bertrand Russell and His World, by Ronald W. Clark (1981) ISBN 0-500-13070-1
• Bertrand Russell: Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares by Ray Monk (1997) ISBN 0-7538-0190-6
• Bertrand Russell: 1872–1920 The Spirit of Solitude by Ray Monk (1997) ISBN 0-09-973131-2
• Bertrand Russell: 1921–1970 The Ghost of Madness by Ray Monk (2001) ISBN 0-09-927275-X
• Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, and Christos Papadimitriou (2009)

Further reading[link]

• Bertrand Russell. 1967–1969, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 volumes, London: George Allen & Unwin.
• Wallechinsky, David & Irving Wallace. 1975–1981, "Famous Marriages Bertrand Russell & Alla Pearsall Smith, Part 1" & "Part 3", on "Alys" Pearsall Smith, webpage content from The People's Almanac, webpages: Part 1 & Part 3 (accessed 8 November 2008).
• Russell B, (1944) "My Mental Development", in Schilpp, Paul Arturn "The Philosophy of Betrand Russell", New York, Tudorm 1951, pp 3–20

External links[link]

This article's use of external links may not follow Wikipedia's policies or guidelines. Please improve this article by removing excessive or inappropriate external links, and converting useful links where appropriate into footnote references. (October 2011)

Find more about Bertrand Russell on Wikipedia's sister projects:
	Images and media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource

Other writings available online

• Works by Bertrand Russell at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Bertrand Russell on Open Library at the Internet Archive
• "A Free Man's Worship" (1903)
• "The Elements of Ethics" (1910)
• War and Non-Resistance (1915)
• The War and Non-Resistance — A Rejoinder to Professor Perry (1915)
• The Ethics of War (1915)
• Justice in Wartime (1917)
• Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel (1917)
• "Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?" 1930
• Legitimacy Versus Industrialism 1814–1848 (1935)
• "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?" (1947)
• "Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind" (1950)
• "What Desires Are Politically Important?" (1950)
• An Outline of Philosophy (1951)
• Is There a God? (1952)
• Russell, Bertrand (1953). "What is an Agnostic?". Archived from the original on 2 February 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080203104023/http://www.control-z.com/pages/agnosticism.html. 
• The Scientific Outlook (1954)
• "16 Questions on the Assassination" (of President Kennedy) (1964)

Audio

• Works by Bertrand Russell in audio format from LibriVox
• Sound clips of Bertrand Russell speaking

Other

• Works by or about Bertrand Russell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Pembroke Lodge — childhood home and museum
• The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly
• The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
• Bertrand Russell at the Internet Movie Database
• Bertrand Russell in Japan
• O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Bertrand Russell", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Russell.html .
• Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery (London)
• Bertrand Russell entry by AD. Irvine in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1 May 2003
• The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University
• Resource list
• The First Reith Lecture given by Russell (Real Audio)
• Nobel Prize
• Bertrand Russell at 100 Welsh Heroes
• Key Participants: Bertrand Russell — Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement: A Documentary History
• PM@100: LOGIC FROM 1910 TO 1927 Conference at the Bertrand Russell Research Centre (McMaster University, Ontario, Canada), to be held on 21–24 May 2010, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Principia Mathematica.
• Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin (2011–present)(Kris Notaro and David Blitz)