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Revision as of 00:08, 31 December 2001 by AxelBoldt (talk | contribs) (expanded on his activism)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872 - 1970), the third Earl Russell, was a philosophers and influential logicians, an important political liberal, activist and popularizer of philosophy. Millions looked up to Russell as a sort of prophet of the creative and rational life; at the same time, his stance on many topics was extremely controversial. He was born in 1872, at the height of Britain's economic and political ascendancy, and died in 1970 when Britain's empire had all but vanished and her power had been drained in two victorious but debilitating world wars. At his death, however, his voice still carried moral authority, for he was one of the world's most influential critics of nuclear weapons and the American war in Vietnam.
In 1950, Russell was made Nobel Laureate in Literature "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought".
Russell's philosophical and logical work
In mathematical logic, Russell established Russell's paradox, which exposed an inconsistency in naive set theory and led directly to the creation of modern axiomatic set theory. He successfully defended logicism (the view that mathematics is in some important sense reducible to logic) by creating, with Alfred North Whitehead, the Principia Mathematica, a clean axiomatic system on which all of mathematics can be built.
Russell is generally recognized as one of the founders of analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his theories of definite descriptions and logical atomism. Wittgenstein was his student.
Russell's activism
Russell was an outspoken pacifist. He opposed England's participation in World War I and as a result was first fined, then lost his professorship and later imprisoned for six months. During World War II, he acknowledged however that Hitler had to be defeated.
Starting in the 1950's, Russell became a vocal opponent of nuclear weapons. He opposed the Vietnam war and along with Sean Paul Sartre organized a tribunal intended to expose American war crimes.
In matters of religion, Russell was an agnostic. He wrote that his attitude towards the Christian God was the same as his attitude towards the Greek gods: strongly convinced that they don't exist, but not able to rigorously prove it. His position is explained in the essays "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?" online and "Why I am not a Christian" online.
Russell's life
Needs lots of work
Russell first met the American Quaker, Alys Pearsall Smith, when he was seventeen years old. Russell fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, and married her in December 1894. Their marriage was ended by separation in 1911. In 1921 they divorced. Russell married Dora Russell in ???, and their children were John Russell and Katharine Russell. After Russell's marriage to Dora broke up, in 1936 he took as his third wife an attractive Oxford undergraduate, Patricia ("Peter") Spence. She had been his children's governess in the summer of 1930. Russell's fourth wife was Edith (Finch). They had known each other since 1925. Edith had lectured in English at Bryn Mawr College, near Philadelphia.
In Spring of 1939, Russell moved to Santa Barbara to take up a professorship at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Links to online writings
- Proposed Roads To Freedom Socialism, Anarchism and Syndicalism Cornwall Press, Inc, Cornwall NY
- Ideas that Have harmed Mankind from "Unpopular Essays" more essays
Links about Russell
Quotes
- "Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
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