Introducing Bertrand Russell: A Graphic Guide

322 Pages·2011·68.73 MB·English

by  Dave Robinson

Published by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road,
London N7 9DP
Email: [email protected]
www.introducingbooks.com
ISBN: 978-178578-008-0
Text copyright © 2012 Icon Books Ltd Illustrations copyright © 2012 Icon
Books Ltd The author and illustrator has asserted their moral rights Originating
editor: Richard Appignanesi No part of this book may be reproduced in any
form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Russell, the Militant Philosopher
Russell’s Upbringing
Fear of Madness
The Geometry Lesson
A Pure and Perfect World
The Quest For Reason
Free at Last…
The Platonist View of Mathematics
The Reality of Numbers
The Formalist View
Three Kinds of Knowledge
Against Idealism
G.E. Moore and Propositions
The Foundations of Mathematics
What is Mathematics?
The Breakthrough
The Logic of Classes
The Eureka Moment
Mathematics as an Escape
Russell’s Devastating Paradox
A Sense of Disillusionment
Principia Mathematica
Types, Functions and Levels
How Certain is Certainty?
Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem
Conclusions Thus Far
The Strange World of Logic
Analytic Questions of Logic
What is Logic?
Lady Ottoline Morell
Empiricism and British Empiricists
Descartes, Locke and Empirical Truth
Berkeley, the Idealist Sceptic
Hume on Impressions
Mill’s Phenomenalism
Russell’s Theory of Knowledge
A Logical Hypothesis
On Denoting
Language and Reality
Definite Descriptions
Paradoxes and Puzzles
Russell’s Solution
The Conclusion About Words and Referring
Grammatical Existence
Logical Atomism as a System
What Can be Referred to?
Russell and Berkeley
A Pure Logical Language
Analytic Philosophy
Wittgenstein: Benign or Malign Influence?
The Mystery of Names and Objects
But is it True?
Russell’s Theories of Meaning
The Ideational or Mentalist Theory
The Atomist Theory
Behavioural Theory
Frege’s Sense and Reference
Wittgenstein’s “Ghost” of Meaning
The Problems of Philosophy
Two Kinds of Knowledge
The Other Problems of Philosophy
Universals and Particulars
Are Universals Real?
What is Truth?
Seeing as God Might See
Wittgenstein, the Prodigal Son
The Ferocious Student
Parting of the Ways
Joseph Conrad
The First World War
The Conscription Issue
The Pacifist Russell
Prison
Theories of Mind
The Idealist Theory of Mind
The Materialist Answer
Double Aspect Theory
Russell’s Neutral Monism
Evaluation of Russell’s Theory
A Satisfactory War
A Bitter Turn
Dora and the Russian Revolution
Experience of Bolshevism
A Visit to China
Failure and Renewal
Russell and Science
The New Physics
Philosophy and Science After Russell
The Beacon Hill Experiment
Sexual Freedom, Almost
Russell’s Politics
The Anarchist View of Power
Socialism and the State
The Threat of Nationalism
World Government
Naïve About Politics
Not Completely a Goose
The Prophet’s Blind Spot
Scandal in America
Russell and Religion
No Proof or Disproof of God
The Enemy of Christianity
Russell in the Nuclear Age
The Peril of Nuclear Holocaust
The Nobel Prize
Pugwash and CND
Committee of 100
Schoenman and the Prophet
The Viper
The Closing Years
The End
Assessments of Russell’s Work
Philosophical Descendants
The Linguistic Analysis School
The Deeper Aim of Philosophy
The Failure of Empiricism
Russell, the Intellectual Icon
Further Reading
About the Author and Artist
Acknowledgements
Index
Russell, the Militant Philosopher
Everyone has heard of Bertrand Russell. He was a great thinker, an agitator
imprisoned for his beliefs, and a man who changed Western philosophy for ever.
He was a profound sceptic who refused to take anything for granted and
protested all his life – against the senseless slaughter of the First World War,
against the evils of all kinds of totalitarian dictatorship, and against nuclear
weapons which he thought would eventually destroy us all. He wrote on a huge
range of subjects and his work has influenced large numbers of people – from
stuffy academics to scruffy anarchists.
“I 20
F A MAJORITY IN EVERY CIVILIZED COUNTRY SO DESIRED, WE COULD, WITHIN YEARS,
ABOLISH ALL ABJECT POVERTY, QUITE HALF THE ILLNESS IN THE WORLD, THE WHOLE
ECONOMIC SLAVERY WHICH BINDS DOWN NINE TENTHS OF OUR POPULATION; WE COULD
”
FILL THE WORLD WITH BEAUTY AND JOY, AND SECURE THE REIGN OF UNIVERSAL PEACE.