Bertrand Russell's Biography(Books)(Photos)

Bertrand Russell was born in Trelleck, Gwent,
as the second son of Viscount Amberley. His

fellowship in 1916. Two years later he served
six months in prison, convicted of libeling

mother, Katherine, was the daughter of Baron
Stanley of Aderley. She died of diphtheria in

an ally - the American army - in a Tribune
article. While in Brixton Gaol, he worked on

1874 and her husband passed on twenty months
later, so that, at the age of three, Russell

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
(1919). World War I darkened Russell's view

was an orphan. He was brought up by his
grandfather, Lord John Russell, who had been

of human nature: "I learned an understanding
of instinctive processes which I had not

possessed before." Also Ludwig Wittgenstein's
criticism of Russell's work on the theory of

Inspired by Euclid's Geometry, Russell
displayed a keen aptitude for pure

knowledge disturbed his philosophical
self-confidence. Russell visited Russia in

mathematics and developed an interest in
philosophy. At Trinity College, Cambridge,

1920 with a Labour Party delegation and met
Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky, but returned

his brilliance was soon recognized, and
brought him a membership in the 'Apostles,’

deeply disillusioned and published his sharp
critic The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

a forerunner of the Bloomsbury Set.

(1920).

After graduating from Cambridge in 1894,
Russell worked briefly at the British Embassy

"The stuff of which the world of our
experience is composed is, in my belief,

in Paris as honorary attache. In the next
year he became a fellow of Trinity College.

neither mind nor matter, but something more
primitive than either. Both mind ands matter

Against his family's wishes, Russell married
an American Quaker, Alys Persall Smith, and

seem to be composite, and the stuff of which
they are compounded lies in a sense between

went with his wife to Berlin, where he
studied economics and gathered data for the

the two, in a sense above them both, like a
common ancestor." (from The Analysis of Mind,

first of his ninety-odd books, German Social
Democracy (1896). russell's fellowship

1921)

dissertation, Essay on the Foundations of
Geometry (1897) was out a year later. "It was

led the way, but I followed closely in his
footsteps," Russell wrote in My Philosophical

Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary about her
friend, but Russell saw himself as "a

non-supernatural Faust." From about 1927 to
1938 Russell lived by lecturing and writing

The Principles of Mathematics (1903) was
Russell's first major work. It proposed that

on a huge range of popular subjects. He
pursued his philosophical work in The

the foundations of mathematics could be
deduced from a few logical ideas. In it

Analysis of the Mind (1921) and The Analysis
of Matter (1927). between the years 1920 and

Russell arrived at the view of Gottlob Frege
(1848-1925), that mathematics is a

1921 he was a professor at Peking and in 1927
he started with his former student and second

continuation of logic and that its
subject-matter is a system of Platonic

wife Dora Black a progressive school at
Beacon Hill, on the Sussex Downs. In On

essences that exist in the realm outside both
mind and matter. Principia Mathematica

Education (1926) Russell called for an
education that would liberate the child from

(1910-13) was written in collaboration with
the philosopher and mathematician Alfred

unthinking obedience to parental and
religious authority. The experiment at Beacon

North Whitehead. According to Russell and
Whitehead, philosophy should limit itself to

Hill lasted for five years and gave material
to the book Education and Social Order

simple, objective accounts of phenomena.
Empirical knowledge was the only path to

(1932).

truth and all other knowledge was subjective
and misleading. However, later Russell became

In 1936 Russell married Patricia Spence, who
had been his research assistant on his

skeptical of the empirical method as the sole
means for ascertaining the truth and admitted

political history Freedom and Organization
(1934). In 1938 he moved to the United

that much of philosophy does depend on
un-provable a priori assumptions about the

States, returning to academic philosophical
work. He was a visiting professor at the

universe. He, however, maintained that
philosophy could and should deliver

University of California at Los Angeles and
later at City College, New York, where he was

substantial results: theories about what
exists, what can be known, and how we come to

debarred from teaching because of libertarian
opinions about sexual morals, education, and

know it.

war. An appointment from the Barnes
Foundation near Philadelphia gave Russell an

After Principia, Russell never again worked
intensively in mathematics. Russell's

opportunity to write one of his most popular
works, History of Western Philosophy (1945).

interpretation of numbers as classes of
classes gave him much trouble: if we have a

Its success permanently ended his financial
difficulties and earned him the Nobel Prize.

class that is not a member of itself - is it
a member of itself? If yes, then no; if no,

In 1944 Russell returned to Cambridge as a
Fellow of his old college, Trinity.

then yes. After discussions with
Wittgenstein, Russell accepted the view that

During WW II Russell abandoned his pacifism,

mathematical statements are tautologies, not
truths about a realm of logico-mathematical

but in the final decades of his life Russell
became the leading figure in the antinuclear

entities.

weapons movement. From 1950 to his death
Russell was extremely active in political

Russell's concise and original introductory
book, The Problems of Philosophy, appeared in

campaigning. He established the Bertrand
Russell Peace Foundation in 1964, supported

1912. He continued with works on
epistemology, Mysticism and Logic (1918) and

the Jews in Russia and the Arabs in
Palestine, and condemned the Vietnam War. In

Analysis and Mind (1921). in his paper of
1905, 'On Denoting', Russell showed how a

his family life Russell had his own
tragedies: his son John and his

logical form could differ from obvious forms
of common language. The work was the

granddaughters Sarah and Lucy suffered from
schizophrenia. Russell turned over the care

foundation of much twentieth-century
philosophizing about language. The essential

of John to his mother, Dora. Lucy immolated
herself five years after Russell's death.

point of his theory, Russell later wrote, was
that "although 'the golden mountain' may be

Retaining his ability to cause debate,

grammatically the subject of a significant
proposition, such a proposition when rightly

Russell was imprisoned in 1961 with his
fourth and final wife Edith Finch for taking

analyzed no longer has such a subject. The
proposition 'the golden mountain does not

exist' becomes ‘the propositional function
"x is golden and a mountain" and is false for

seven days in Brixton Prison. His last years
Russell spent in North Wales. His later works

all values of x'." (from My Philosophical
Development)

include Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits
(1948), two collections of sardonic fables,

In 1907 Russell stood unsuccessfully for

Satan in the Suburb (1953) and Nightmares of
Eminent Persons (1954), and The Autobiography

Parliament as a candidate for the Women's
Suffragate Society. The next year he became a

of Bertrand Russell (1967-69, 3 vols.), in
which he stated: "Three passions, simple but

knowledge and unbearable pity for the
suffering of mankind." Russell died of

with the literary hostess Lady Ottoline
Morrell, who had been a close friend of the

influenza on February 2, 1970. when asked
what he would say to God if he found himself

Swedish writer and physician Axel Munthe
(1857-1949). other liaisons followed, among

before Him, Russell answered: 'I should
reproach him for not giving us enough

others with T.S. Eliot's wife Vivien
Haigh-Wood. Later Russell wrote about his

evidence.'

sexual morality and agnosticism in Marriage
and Morals (1929). russell stated that human

Though Russell was a pioneer of logical
positivism, which was further developed by

beings are not naturally monogamous,
outraging many with his views. In 1927

such philosophers from 'Vienna circle' as
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Rudolf Carnap, he

Russell wrote in Why I Am Not a Christian
that all organized religions are the residue

never identified himself fully with the
group. In Human Knowledge: Its Scope and

of the barbaric past, dwindled to
hypocritical superstitions that have no basis

Limits, Russell argued that, while the data
of sense are mental, they are caused by

in reality.

physical events. The world is a vast
collection of facts and events, but beyond

At the outbreak of World War I, Russell was
an outspoken pacifist, which lost him his

the laws of their occurrence science cannot
go; it only gives us knowledge of the world.