Bertrand Russell

The Right Honourable
The Earl Russell
OM FRS
Russell in 1949
Born
Bertrand Arthur William Russell

(1872-05-18)18 May 1872
Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales[a]
Died2 February 1970(1970-02-02) (aged 97)
Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales
EducationTrinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1893)
Spouses
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1894; div. 1921)​
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1921; div. 1935)​
  • ​
    ​
    (m. 1936; div. 1952)​
    [6]
  • ​
    (m. 1952)​
Awards
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic philosophy
InstitutionsTrinity College, Cambridge, London School of Economics, University of Chicago, University of California, Los Angeles
Academic advisorsJames Ward[1]
A. N. Whitehead
Doctoral studentsLudwig Wittgenstein
Other notable students
Main interests
Notable ideas
 
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
4 March 1931 – 2 February 1970
Hereditary peerage
Preceded byThe 2nd Earl Russell
Succeeded byThe 4th Earl Russell
Personal details
Political partyLabour (1922–1965)
Other political
affiliations		Liberal (1907–1922)
Signature

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS[7] (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic philosophy.[8]

He was one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians[8] and a founder of analytic philosophy, along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, his friend and colleague G. E. Moore, and his student and protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. Russell with Moore led the British "revolt against idealism".[b] Together with his former teacher A. N. Whitehead, Russell wrote Principia Mathematica, a milestone in the development of classical logic and a major attempt to reduce the whole of mathematics to logic (see logicism). Russell's article "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy".[10]

Russell was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the India League.[11][12][13] He went to prison for his pacifism during World War I,[14] and initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1943, describing war as a necessary "lesser of two evils". In the wake of World War II, he welcomed American global hegemony in preference to either Soviet hegemony or no (or ineffective) world leadership, even if it were to come at the cost of using their nuclear weapons.[15] He would later criticise Stalinist totalitarianism, condemn the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, and become an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament.[16]

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".[17][18] He was also the recipient of the De Morgan Medal (1932), Sylvester Medal (1934), Kalinga Prize (1957), and Jerusalem Prize (1963).

  1. ^ James Ward Archived 1 May 2020 at the Wayback Machine (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
  2. ^ Wettstein, Howard, "Frege-Russell Semantics?", Dialectica 44(1–2), 1990, pp. 113–135, esp. 115: "Russell maintains that when one is acquainted with something, say, a present sense datum or oneself, one can refer to it without the mediation of anything like a Fregean sense. One can refer to it, as we might say, directly."
  3. ^ "Structural Realism" Archived 3 July 2008 at the Wayback Machine: entry by James Ladyman in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  4. ^ "Russellian Monism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. 2019. Archived from the original on 10 September 2024. Retrieved 30 July 2020.
  5. ^ Dowe, Phil (10 September 2007). "Causal Processes". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 10 September 2024. Retrieved 29 November 2017.
  6. ^ Irvine, Andrew David (1 January 2015). "Bertrand Russell". In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. Archived from the original on 10 September 2024. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
  7. ^ Kreisel, G. (1973). "Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Earl Russell. 1872–1970". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society. 19: 583–620. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1973.0021. ISSN 0080-4606. JSTOR 769574.
  8. ^ a b Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Bertrand Russell" Archived 9 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, 1 May 2003.
  9. ^ Russell B, (1944) "My Mental Development", in, Paul Arthur Schilpp: The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, New York: Tudor, 1951, pp. 3–20.
  10. ^ Ludlow, Peter. "Descriptions, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.)". Archived from the original on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2008.
  11. ^ Rempel, Richard (1979). "From Imperialism to Free Trade: Couturat, Halevy and Russell's First Crusade". Journal of the History of Ideas. 40 (3). University of Pennsylvania Press: 423–443. doi:10.2307/2709246. JSTOR 2709246.
  12. ^ Russell, Bertrand (1988) [1917]. Political Ideals. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10907-8.
  13. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  14. ^ Samoiloff, Louise Cripps. C .L. R. James: Memories and Commentaries, p. 19. Associated University Presses, 1997. ISBN 0-8453-4865-5
  15. ^ Russell, Bertrand (October 1946). "Atomic Weapon and the Prevention of War". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 2/7–8, (1 October 1946). p. 20. Archived from the original on 10 September 2024. Retrieved 24 August 2017.
  16. ^ The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 — Bertrand Russell Archived 2 July 2018 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on 22 March 2013.
  17. ^ "British Nobel Prize Winners (1950)". 13 April 2014. Archived from the original on 23 November 2021 – via YouTube.


Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).