Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell a British philosopher, logician, mathematician and social critic (1872-1970), one of the founders of analytic philosophy and a Nobel laureate in literature. His work on the foundations of mathematics, his popular writing on science and religion and his lifelong activism made him one of the most famous intellectuals of the twentieth century.

Life and Education

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born into an aristocratic British family in 1872 and was orphaned young, raised by his grandparents. He studied mathematics and philosophy at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was taught by Alfred North Whitehead and where he later became a fellow and lecturer. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society and held many academic and public positions.

His life was long and turbulent. He was dismissed from Cambridge during the First World War for his pacifist activities and imprisoned for a time, and he lost a teaching post in New York in 1940 after a legal challenge to his views on morality. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 and spent his later years as a campaigner against nuclear weapons.

He married several times and had a large circle of friends and correspondents. He died in Wales in 1970, having lived through and commented on nearly a century of intellectual and political change. His autobiography and his many essays made him a familiar public figure.

Logic, Mathematics and Principia Mathematica

Russell's earliest and most enduring contribution was to logic and the foundations of mathematics. In The Principles of Mathematics and, with Alfred North Whitehead, in Principia Mathematica, he sought to show that mathematics could be derived from logic. The three volumes of that work, published between 1910 and 1913, transformed the subject and became a landmark of modern thought.

He developed the theory of descriptions, which shows how phrases such as the present king of France can occur in meaningful sentences without implying the existence of a unique object. This technique became a model for analytic philosophy, demonstrating how logical analysis can resolve puzzles about language and reality.

He also discovered a paradox, known as Russell's paradox, concerning the set of all sets that are not members of themselves. The paradox undermined naive set theory and prompted a long search for a secure foundation, in which Russell developed his theory of types. These results shaped the emergence of mathematical logic as a discipline.

Analytic Philosophy and Epistemology

Alongside G. E. Moore, Russell led the revolt against the idealist philosophy dominant in Britain at the turn of the century. He championed a robust common-sense realism, holding that the objects of perception exist independently of being perceived. His Problems of Philosophy remains a widely read introduction to the subject.

He developed a theory of knowledge by acquaintance and description, distinguishing what we know directly, such as our own experiences, from what we know only through inference. He applied logical analysis to perception, arguing that our knowledge of physical objects is constructed from simpler elements given in experience, a programme known as logical atomism.

His writings with Whitehead, his debates with philosophers such as Wittgenstein and his willingness to follow an argument wherever it led made him a central figure in the development of analytic method. He insisted that philosophy should aim at clarity and at results as definite as those of science.

Social and Political Thought

Russell wrote extensively on politics, education, marriage and religion, often in a direct and accessible style. His book A History of Western Philosophy, published in 1945, became a bestseller and introduced generations of readers to the subject, though specialists have faulted some of its interpretations. In Why I Am Not a Christian he set out a reasoned case against religious belief.

He was a committed pacifist during the First World War and later a supporter of various progressive causes, including women's suffrage and educational reform. In his later years he was a leading figure in the campaign for nuclear disarmament, founding the Pugwash conferences and joining protests against the Vietnam War.

His political writing combined liberal and socialist sympathies with a distrust of dogmatic systems. He argued for individual freedom, for the spread of knowledge and for the use of reason in public affairs, and he remained a critic of both communism and capitalism where he thought either threatened liberty.

Influence and Legacy

Russell is counted among the founders of analytic philosophy, and his technical work in logic continues to be studied and used. The theory of descriptions and Russell's paradox are standard topics in logic courses, and the notation and methods developed in Principia influenced later work in mathematics and computer science.

As a public intellectual he set a standard for engaged, lucid writing. His popular books reached a vast audience and helped to shape the reading public's understanding of philosophy and science. He received the Nobel Prize for his varied and significant writings in which he championed humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.

He was, however, a controversial figure, and his personal conduct and some of his political judgements were much criticised. Yet his contribution to logic, his role in founding a philosophical tradition and his lifelong defence of reason and liberty secure his place as one of the defining thinkers of his age.

See also

• Analytic philosophy
• Principia Mathematica
• Theory of descriptions
• Logical atomism