Bertrand Russell wrote many books and articles. He also tried to make philosophy popular. He gave his opinion on many topics. He wrote the essay, "On Denoting", which has been described as one of the most influential essays in philosophy in the 20th Century. He wrote on very serious issues as well as everyday things.
He was a well known liberal as well as a socialist and anti-war activist for most of his long life. Millions looked up to Russell as a prophet of the creative and rational life. At the same time, his stances on many topics were extremely controversial. From 1931 until his death, he was a member of the House of Lords.
In his 1949 speech, "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?", Russell expressed his difficulty over whether to call himself an atheist or an agnostic:
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
— Bertrand Russell, Collected Papers, vol. 11, p. 91
In Russel's book The Impact of Science on Society he wrote:
I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. Mass psychology is, scientifically speaking, not a very advanced study, and so far its professors have not been in universities: they have been advertisers, politicians, and, above all, dictators. This study is immensely useful to practical men, whether they wish to become rich or to acquire the government. Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called "education." Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part...
What people said about Russell
As a man
"Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man."
"It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Russell's thought dominated twentieth century analytic philosophy: virtually every strand in its development either originated with him or was transformed by being transmitted through him. Analytic philosophy itself owes its existence more to Russell than to any other philosopher."
— Nicholas Griffin, The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
As a writer and his place in history
"Russell's prose has been compared by T.S. Eliot to that of David Hume's. I would rank it higher, for it had more color, juice, and humor. But to be lucid, exciting and profound in the main body of one's work is a combination of virtues given to few philosophers. Bertrand Russell has achieved immortality by his philosophical writings."
— Sidney Hook, Out of Step, An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, NY: Carol & Graff, 1988.
"Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein quoted in Rush Rhees, Recollections of Wittgenstein, Oxford Paperbacks, 1984.
As a mathematician and logician
Of the Principia: "...its enduring value was simply a deeper understanding of the central concepts of mathematics and their basic laws and interrelationships. Their total translatability into just elementary logic and a simple familiar two-place predicate, membership, is of itself a philosophical sensation."
— W.V. Quine, From Stimulus to Science, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995.
As an activist
"Oh, Bertrand Russell! Oh, Hewlett Johnson! Where, oh where, was your flaming conscience at that time?"
— Alexandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago, Harper & Row, 1974.
As a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature
In other words, it was specifically not for his incontestably great contributions to philosophy — The Principles of Mathematics, 'On Denoting' and Principia Mathematica — that he was being honoured, but for the later work that his fellow philosophers were unanimous in regarding as inferior.
— Ray Monk, Bertrand Russell, The Ghost of Madness, p. 332.
From a daughter
"He was the most fascinating man I have ever known, the only man I ever loved, the greatest man I shall ever meet, the wittiest, the gayest, the most charming. It was a privilege to know him, and I thank God he was my father."
— Katharine Tait, My Father Bertrand Russell, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975, p. 202.
Quotations
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bertrand Russell
"War does not determine who is right. Only who is left." (Often attributed to Russell, but no sources exist.)[1]
"The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible." (Source: Alan Wood, Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic, 1957)
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." (Source?)
"You could tell by his [Aldous Huxley] conversation which volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica he'd been reading. One day it would be Alps, Andes and Apennines, and the next it would be the Himalayas and the Hippocratic Oath." (Source: Parris, M., Scorn: With Added Vitriol, London: Penguin, 1996, quoting Russell's 1963 letter to Ronald W. Clark)
"A Tale of Two Moralities" "I dislike Nietzsche," Russell wrote, "because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die." (Source: History of Western Philosophy, chap. on Nietzsche, last par.)
Further reading
Selected bibliography of Russell's books
This is a selected bibliography of Russell's books in English sorted by year of first publication.
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, 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, Wisdom of the West ("editor", 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.
1967 – 1969, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols., London: George Allen & Unwin.
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.
Note: This is a mere sampling, for Russell also authored many pamphlets, introductions, articles and letters to the editor. His works also can be found in any number of 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 3 volumes catalogue just his bibliography. The Russell Archives at McMaster also have more than 30,000 letters that he wrote.
Additional references:
A. 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.
B. Secondary references:
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.
Books about Russell's philosophy
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.
The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, edited by P.A. Schilpp, Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1944.
Russell, by A. J. Ayer, London: Fontana, 1972. ISBN0006329659. A lucid summary exposition of Russell's thought.
Biographical books
Bertrand Russell: 1872 – 1920 The Spirit of Solitude by Ray Monk (1997) ISBN0099731312
Bertrand Russell: 1921 – 1970 The Ghost of Madness by Ray Monk (2001) ISBN009927275X
Bertrand Russell: Philosopher and Humanist, by John Lewis (1968)
Bertrand Russell, by A.J. Ayer (1972), reprint ed. 1988: ISBN0226033430
The Life of Bertrand Russell, by Ronald W. Clark (1975) ISBN0394490592
Bertrand Russell and His World, by Ronald W. Clark (1981) ISBN0500130701
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