Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell
Born	(1872-05-18)18 May 1872 Trellech, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom
Died	2 February 1970(1970-02-02) (aged 97) Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, United Kingdom
Nationality	British
Awards	Nobel Prize in Literature (1950)
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy
Main interests	Epistemology Ethics Logic Mathematics Metaphysics History of philosophy Philosophy of language Philosophy of logic Philosophy of mathematics Philosophy of mind Philosophy of perception Philosophy of religion Philosophy of science
Notable ideas	Analytic philosophy Automated reasoning Automated theorem proving Axiom of reducibility Barber paradox Berry paradox Chicken (game) Connective (logic) Definite description Descriptivist theory of names Double negation Existential fallacy Failure of reference Knowledge by acquaintance Knowledge by description Logical atomism Logical form Mathematical beauty Mathematical logic Meaning Metamathematics Philosophical logic Propositional calculus Naive set theory Neutral monism Paradoxes of set theory Peano-Russell notation Propositional formula Self-refuting idea Quantification Round square copula Relation Russell conjugation Russell's paradox Russell's teapot Set-theoretic definition of natural numbers Singleton Theory of descriptions Type theory Tensor product of graphs Unity of the proposition
Signature

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British nobleman, philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. 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. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.

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 protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. 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". His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, 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 and went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, and was 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."

Biography

Early life and background

Young Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents, Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, were radical for their times. 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 was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life.

His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, had twice been asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s. 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.

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 (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), 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 following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly 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 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.

Pembroke Lodge, Russell's childhood home.

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 (one could challenge this view that Bertrand stood up for his principles, based on Bertrand Russell's own well-known quote: "I would never die for my beliefs, I could be wrong.") —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. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. At age 11, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life.

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." Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found very 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.

University and first marriage

Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced 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 quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as a high Wrangler in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895.

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.

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. During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson.

Early career

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. 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 an intensive study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity. He attended the International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900 where he met Giuseppi 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 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 acute 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 became a fellow of the Royal Society 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.

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. Russell delivered his lectures on Logical Atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of the First World War. Wittgenstein was, at that time, serving in the Austrian Army and would subsequently spend nine more months in an Italian prisoner of war camp at the end of the conflict.

First World War

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

Russell played a significant part in the Leeds Convention in June 1917 - an historic event which which saw well over a thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the Independant Labor Party and the Socialist Party, united in their pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international press reported that Russell appeared alongside a number of Labor M.P.'s, including both the future Prime Minister, Ramsey McDonald, and the future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden and that former Liberal M.P., and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor Arnold Lupton, was also a guest. After the event, Russell told Lady Ottoline that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody".

The Trinity incident resulted in Russell being 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."

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) in 1918. While in prison, Russell read enormously, and wrote the book Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. He was reinstated in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer 1926, and became a Fellow again 1944–49.

In 1924, Bertrand again gained press attention when attending a "banquet" in the House of Commons with well known campaigners, including Arnold Lupton, who had been both Members of Parliament and had also endured imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service".

Between the wars and second marriage

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. 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, a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner, 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 about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from Britain, all of whom came home thinking well of the régime, 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. While in 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 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.

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 his family 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, the English governess and writer, and first wife of T. S. Eliot.

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 Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943.

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. 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.

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

Second World War

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.

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 judgement that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the college due to his opinions—notably those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals (1929). 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 his treatment. Albert Einstein's oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter supporting Russell's appointment dated March 19, 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY. 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.

Later life

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. A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a bestseller and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life.

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 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.

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 only 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 slightly 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 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 his former wife Dora. John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters, two of whom were later diagnosed with schizophrenia.

In September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed for seven days in Brixton Prison after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration in London, for "breach of peace". The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't."

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 also wrote to John F. Kennedy, who returned his telegram unopened.

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, Caroline Benn, 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.

Political causes

File:Bertrand Russell leads anti-nuclear march in London, Feb 1961.jpg

Russell (centre) alongside his wife Edith, leading a CND anti-nuclear march in London, 18 February 1961

Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in 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. He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period.

In 1956, immediately before and during the Suez Crisis, Russell expressed his opposition to what he viewed as European imperialism in the Middle East. He viewed the crisis as another reminder of what he saw as a pressing need for a more effective mechanism for international governance, and to restrict national sovereignty to 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 criticize 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 November 16, 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 already entered Budapest.

In November 1957, Russell wrote 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 indeed 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 Britain 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 suggested that all nuclear-weapons testing and constant 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 a United Nations peacekeeping force to guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel was protected from aggression and prevented from committing 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, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal in his disapproval of the Vietnam War, and felt that the U.S. 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 and death

Bust of Russell in Red Lion Square

Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Russell made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi film Aman 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 Writers Union.

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. He called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War borders. 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 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.

Titles and honours from birth

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

Views on philosophy

Main article: Bertrand Russell's views on philosophy

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".

Views on religion

Russell described himself as an agnostic, "speaking to a purely philosophical audience", but as an atheist "speaking popularly", on the basis that he could not disprove the Christian God similar to the way that he could not disprove the Olympic Gods either. 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 that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede knowledge and 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.

Views on society

Main article: Bertrand Russell's views on 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.

Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, the growth of population limited, and prosperity 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".

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."

Selected bibliography

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. Principles of Social Reconstruction. London, George Allen and Unwin.
• 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: 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. (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.
• 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. 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 A B C 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 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 allegedly helped secure the release of hundreds of conscientious objectors from prison.

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

• Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
• Doctrine of internal relations
• In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
• List of peace activists
• Neutral monism
• Russell's paradox
• Structural realism (philosophy of science)
• Russell's teapot

Notes

Additional references

Russell

• 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

• 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

• Ayer, Alfred Julius. Russell, London: Fontana, 1972. ISBN 0-00-632965-9. A lucid summary exposition of Russell's thought.
• Celia Green The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-Body Problem, Oxford: Oxford Forum, 2003. ISBN 0-9536772-1-4 Contains a sympathetic analysis of Russell's views on causality.
• Grayling, A. C. Russell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Griffin. Nicholas. Russell's Idealist Apprenticeship, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Irvine, A.D. (ed.). Bertrand Russell: Critical Assessments, edited by, 4 volumes, London: Routledge, 1999. Consists of essays on Russell's work by many distinguished philosophers.
• Potter, Michael K. Bertrand Russell's Ethics, Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006. A clear and accessible explanation of Russell's moral philosophy.
• Ramsden Eames, Elizabeth. Bertrand Russell’s Theory of Knowledge, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969. A clear description of Russell’s philosophical development.
• Schilpp, P.A. (ed.). The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1944.
• Slater, John. 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: ISBN 0-226-03343-0
• Ronald W. Clark. The Life of Bertrand Russell, London: Jonathan Cape,1975 ISBN 0-394-49059-2
• Ronald W. Clark. Bertrand Russell and His World, London: Thames & Hudson, 1981 ISBN 0-500-13070-1
• Rupert Crawshay-Williams. Russell Remembered, London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Written by a close friend of Russell's
• John Lewis. Bertrand Russell: Philosopher and Humanist, London: Lawerence & Wishart, 1968
• Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares London: Phoenix, 1997 ISBN 0-7538-0190-6
• Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: 1872–1920 The Spirit of Solitude Vol. I, New York: Routledge, 1997 ISBN 0-09-973131-2
• Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: 1921–1970 The Ghost of Madness Vol. II, New York: Routledge, 2001 ISBN 0-09-927275-X
• George Santayana 'Bertrand Russell', by in Selected Writings of George Santayana, ed. Norman Henfrey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I, 1968, pp. 326–329
• Katharine Tait. My father Bertrand Russell, New York: Thoemmes Press, 1975
• 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).
• Alan Wood. Bertrand Russell The Passionate Sceptic London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957. Russell had a good opinion of this author.

External links

• Works by Bertrand Russell at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Bertrand Russell at Open Library
• The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University