18 May 1872|
Trellech, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom
|Died||2 February 1970
Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, United Kingdom
|Awards||De Morgan Medal (1932)
Nobel Prize in Literature (1950)
Kalinga Prize (1957)
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (//; 18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 20th century. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore, and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science (see type theory and type system), and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.
Russell was a prominent anti-war activist; he championed anti-imperialism and went to prison for his pacifism during World War I. Later, he campaigned against Adolf Hitler, then criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. 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".
- 1 Biography
- 2 Views
- 3 Selected bibliography
- 4 See also
- 5 References
- 6 External links
Early life and background
Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Ravenscroft, Trellech, Monmouthshire, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents, Viscount and Viscountess Amberley, were radical for their times. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley was an atheist and his atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life.
His paternal grandfather, the Earl Russell, had been asked twice by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s. The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty (see: Duke of Bedford). They established themselves as one of Britain's leading Whig families, and participated in every great political event from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536–40 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–89 and the Great Reform Act in 1832.
Childhood and adolescence
Russell had two siblings: brother Frank (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), and sister Rachel (four years older). In June 1874 Russell's mother died of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father died of bronchitis following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly Victorian paternal grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. His grandfather, former Prime Minister Earl Russell, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the dominant family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth.
The countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and successfully petitioned the Court of Chancery to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life. (One could challenge the view that Bertrand stood up for his principles, based on his own well-known quotation: "I would never die for my beliefs, I could be wrong".) Her favourite Bible verse, 'Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil' (Exodus 23:2), became his motto. The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression, and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings.
Russell's adolescence was very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in religion and mathematics, and that only his wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide. He was educated at home by a series of tutors. At age eleven, his brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life.
During these formative years he also discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. In his autobiography, he writes: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy". Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, which he found very unconvincing. At this age, he came to the conclusion that there is no free will and, two years later, that there is no life after death. Finally, at the age of 18, after reading Mill's "Autobiography", he abandoned the "First Cause" argument and became an atheist.
University and first marriage
Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced his studies there in 1890, taking as coach Robert Rumsey Webb. He became acquainted with the younger George Edward Moore and came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead, who recommended him to the Cambridge Apostles. He quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating as a high Wrangler in 1893 and becoming a Fellow in the latter in 1895.
Russell first met the American Quaker Alys Pearsall Smith when he was 17 years old. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as 'Lord John's grandson' and enjoyed showing him off—and travelled with them to the continent; it was in their company that Russell visited the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and was able to climb the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed.
He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and, contrary to his grandmother's wishes, married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was cycling, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage and they finally divorced in 1921, after a lengthy period of separation. During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson.
Russell began his published work in 1896 with German Social Democracy, a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory. In 1896 he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics, where he also lectured on the science of power in the autumn of 1937. He was a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.
He now started an intensive study of the foundations of mathematics at Trinity. In 1898 he wrote An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry which discussed the Cayley-Klein metrics used for non-Euclidean geometry. He attended the International Congress of Philosophy in Paris in 1900 where he met Giuseppe Peano and Alessandro Padoa. The Italians had responded to Georg Cantor, making a science of set theory; they gave Russell their literature including the Formulario mathematico. Russell was impressed by the precision of Peano's arguments at the Congress, read the literature upon returning to England, and came upon Russell's paradox. In 1903 he published The Principles of Mathematics, a work on foundations of mathematics. It advanced a thesis of logicism, that mathematics and logic are one and the same.
At the age of 29, in February 1901, Russell underwent what he called a "sort of mystic illumination", after witnessing Whitehead's wife's acute suffering in an angina attack. "I found myself filled with semi-mystical feelings about beauty... and with a desire almost as profound as that of the Buddha to find some philosophy which should make human life endurable", Russell would later recall. "At the end of those five minutes, I had become a completely different person."
In 1905 he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal Mind. Russell became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908. The three-volume Principia Mathematica, written with Whitehead, was published between 1910 and 1913. This, along with the earlier The Principles of Mathematics, soon made Russell world-famous in his field.
In 1910 he became a lecturer in the University of Cambridge, where he was approached by the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, who became his PhD student. Russell viewed Wittgenstein as a genius and a successor who would continue his work on logic. He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair. This was often a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922. Russell delivered his lectures on Logical Atomism, his version of these ideas, in 1918, before the end of the First World War. Wittgenstein was, at that time, serving in the Austrian Army and subsequently spent nine months in an Italian prisoner of war camp at the end of the conflict.
First World War
During the First World War, Russell was one of the very few people to engage in active pacifist activities, and in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act.
Russell played a significant part in the Leeds Convention in June 1917 — a historic event which saw well over a thousand "anti-war socialists" gather; many being delegates from the Independent Labour Party and the Socialist Party, united in their pacifist beliefs and advocating a peace settlement. The international press reported that Russell appeared alongside a number of Labour MPs, including both the future Prime Minister, Ramsey McDonald, and the future Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Snowden and that former Liberal MP, and anti-conscription campaigner, Professor Arnold Lupton, was also a guest. After the event, Russell told Lady Ottoline that, "to my surprise, when I got up to speak, I was given the greatest ovation that was possible to give anybody".
The Trinity incident resulted in Russell being charged a fine of £100, which he refused to pay, hoping that he would be sent to prison. However, his books were sold at auction to raise the money. The books were bought by friends; he later treasured his copy of the King James Bible that was stamped "Confiscated by Cambridge Police".
A later conviction for publicly lecturing against inviting the US to enter the war on Britain's side resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison (see Bertrand Russell's views on society) in 1918. While in prison, Russell read enormously, and wrote the book Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. He was reinstated in 1919, resigned in 1920, was Tarner Lecturer 1926, and became a Fellow again in 1944 and remained as such until 1949.
In 1924, Bertrand again gained press attention when attending a "banquet" in the House of Commons with well-known campaigners, including Arnold Lupton, who had been both a Member of Parliament and had also endured imprisonment for "passive resistance to military or naval service".
Between the wars
In August 1920 Russell travelled to Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution. He met Vladimir Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin rather disappointing, sensing an "impish cruelty" in him and comparing him to "an opinionated professor". He cruised down the Volga on a steamship. His experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for the revolution. He wrote a book The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism about his experiences on this trip, taken with a group of 24 others from Britain, all of whom came home thinking well of the régime, despite Russell's attempts to change their minds. For example, he told them that he heard shots fired in the middle of the night and was sure these were clandestine executions, but the others maintained that it was only cars backfiring.
Russell's lover Dora Black, a British author, feminist and socialist campaigner, visited Russia independently at the same time; in contrast to his reaction, she was enthusiastic about the revolution.
The next autumn Russell went, accompanied by Dora, to Peking (as it was then known in the West) to lecture on philosophy for one year. He went with optimism and hope, seeing China as then being on a new path. Other scholars present in China at the time included John Dewey and Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian Nobel-laureate poet. Before leaving China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press. When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora took on the role of spurning the local press by handing out notices reading "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists". Apparently they found this harsh and reacted resentfully.
Dora was six months pregnant when the couple returned to England on 26 August 1921. Russell arranged a hasty divorce from Alys, marrying Dora six days after the divorce was finalised, on 27 September 1921. Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, born on 16 November 1921, and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait), born on 29 December 1923. Russell supported his family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, the English governess and writer, and first wife (the Eliots did not formally separate until 1933) of T. S. Eliot.
Together with Dora, he founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russells' residence, Telegraph House, near Harting, West Sussex. On 8 July 1930 Dora gave birth to her third child Harriet Ruth. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943.
Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell. He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms.
Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry. They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess since 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a prominent historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democratic party.
Second World War
Russell opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany, but in 1940 changed his view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare, "Relative Political Pacifism": War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils.
Before World War II, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the UCLA Department of Philosophy. He was appointed professor at the City College of New York (CCNY) in 1940, but after a public outcry the appointment was annulled by a court judgment that pronounced him "morally unfit" to teach at the college due to his opinions—notably those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals (1929). The protest was started by the mother of a student who would not have been eligible for his graduate-level course in mathematical logic; many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested at his treatment. Albert Einstein's oft-quoted aphorism that "great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds" originated in his open letter supporting Russell's appointment dated 19 March 1940, to Morris Raphael Cohen, a professor emeritus at CCNY. Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case. He soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of A History of Western Philosophy. His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to Britain in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.
During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly The Brains Trust and the Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. By this time Russell was world-famous outside academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones. En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (among a total of 43 passengers) in an aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948. He said he owed his life to smoking since the people who drowned were in the non-smoking part of the plane. A History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life.
In 1943, Russell expressed support for Zionism: "I have come gradually to see that, in a dangerous and largely hostile world, it is essential to Jews to have some country which is theirs, some region where they are not suspected aliens, some state which embodies what is distinctive in their culture".
In a speech in 1948, Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before it possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atom bombs on both sides. At that time, only the United States possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its sphere of influence. Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Nigel Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke. Others, including Griffin, who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe. However, just after the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Russell wrote letters, and pubished articles in newspapers from 1945-1948, stating clearly that it was morally justified and better to go to war against the USSR using atomic bombs while the USA possessed them and before the USSR did. After the USSR exploded the atomic bomb, Russel changed his position 180 degrees and advocated now the total abolishment of atomic weapons.
In 1948, Russell was invited by the BBC to deliver the inaugural Reith Lectures—what was to become an annual series of lectures, still broadcast by the BBC. His series of six broadcasts, titled Authority and the Individual, explored themes such as the role of individual initiative in the development of a community and the role of state control in a progressive society. Russell continued to write about philosophy. He wrote a foreword to Words and Things by Ernest Gellner, which was highly critical of the later thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein and of ordinary language philosophy. Gilbert Ryle refused to have the book reviewed in the philosophical journal Mind, which caused Russell to respond via The Times. The result was a month-long correspondence in The Times between the supporters and detractors of ordinary language philosophy, which was only ended when the paper published an editorial critical of both sides but agreeing with the opponents of ordinary language philosophy.
In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit, and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. When he was given the Order of Merit, George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying, "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted". Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind. In 1952 Russell was divorced by Spence, with whom he had been very unhappy. Conrad, Russell's son by Spence, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother).
Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, sharing a house for 20 years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly. Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. Russell's eldest son John suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and his former wife Dora. John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters, two of whom were later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
In September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed for seven days in Brixton Prison after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration in London, for "breach of peace". The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to "good behaviour", to which Russell replied: "No, I won't."
In 1962 Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in an exchange of telegrams with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev assured him that the Soviet government would not be reckless. Russell sent this telegram to President Kennedy:
YOUR ACTION DESPERATE. THREAT TO HUMAN SURVIVAL. NO CONCEIVABLE JUSTIFICATION. CIVILIZED MAN CONDEMNS IT. WE WILL NOT HAVE MASS MURDER. ULTIMATUM MEANS WAR... END THIS MADNESS.
According to historian Peter Knight, after JFK's assassination, Russell, "prompted by the emerging work of the lawyer Mark Lane in the US ... rallied support from other noteworthy and left-leaning compatriots to form a Who Killed Kennedy Committee in June 1964, members of which included Michael Foot MP, Caroline Benn, the publisher Victor Gollancz, the writers John Arden and J. B. Priestley, and the Oxford history professor Hugh Trevor-Roper. Russell published a highly critical article weeks before the Warren Commission Report was published, setting forth 16 Questions on the Assassination and equating the Oswald case with the Dreyfus affair of late 19th-century France, in which the state wrongly convicted an innocent man. Russell also criticised the American press for failing to heed any voices critical of the official version.
Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in political causes primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam War. The 1955 Russell–Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by eleven of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time. In 1966–67, Russell worked with Jean-Paul Sartre and many other intellectual figures to form the Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal to investigate the conduct of the United States in Vietnam. He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period.
In 1956, immediately before and during the Suez Crisis, Russell expressed his opposition to what he viewed as European imperialism in the Middle East. He viewed the crisis as another reminder of what he saw as a pressing need for a more effective mechanism for international governance, and to restrict national sovereignty to places such as the Suez Canal area "where general interest is involved". At the same time the Suez Crisis was taking place, the world was also captivated by the Hungarian Revolution and the subsequent crushing of the revolt by intervening Soviet forces. Russell attracted criticism for speaking out fervently against the Suez war while ignoring Soviet repression in Hungary, to which he responded that he did not criticise the Soviets "because there was no need. Most of the so-called Western World was fulminating". Although he later feigned a lack of concern, at the time he was disgusted by the brutal Soviet response, and on 16 November 1956, he expressed approval for a declaration of support for Hungarian scholars which Michael Polanyi had cabled to the Soviet embassy in London twelve days previously, shortly after Soviet troops had already entered Budapest.
In November 1957 Russell wrote an article addressing US President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, urging a summit to consider "the conditions of co-existence". Khrushchev responded that peace could indeed be served by such a meeting. In January 1958 Russell elaborated his views in The Observer, proposing a cessation of all nuclear-weapons production, with Britain taking the first step by unilaterally suspending its own nuclear-weapons program if necessary, and with Germany "freed from all alien armed forces and pledged to neutrality in any conflict between East and West". US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles replied for Eisenhower. The exchange of letters was published as The Vital Letters of Russell, Khrushchev, and Dulles.
Russell was asked by The New Republic, a liberal American magazine, to elaborate his views on world peace. He suggested that all nuclear-weapons testing and constant flights by planes armed with nuclear weapons be halted immediately, and negotiations be opened for the destruction of all Hydrogen bombs, with the number of conventional nuclear devices limited to ensure a balance of power. He proposed that Germany be reunified and accept the Oder-Neisse line as its border, and that a neutral zone be established in Central Europe, consisting at the minimum of Germany, Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, with each of these countries being free of foreign troops and influence, and prohibited from forming alliances with countries outside the zone. In the Middle East, Russell suggested that the West avoid opposing Arab nationalism, and proposed a United Nations peacekeeping force to guard Israel's frontiers to ensure that Israel was protected from aggression and prevented from committing it. He also suggested Western recognition of the People's Republic of China, and that it be admitted to the UN with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his anti-war film Good Times, Wonderful Times in the 1960s. He became a hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left. In early 1963, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal in his disapproval of the Vietnam War, and felt that the US government's policies there were near-genocidal. In 1963 he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society. In 1964 he was one of eleven world figures who issued an appeal to Israel and the Arab countries to accept an arms embargo and international supervision of nuclear plants and rocket weaponry. In October 1965 he tore up his Labour Party card because he suspected Harold Wilson's Labour government was going to send troops to support the United States in Vietnam.
Final years and death
Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. Russell made a cameo appearance playing himself in the anti-war Hindi film Aman which was released in India in 1967. This was Russell's only appearance in a feature film.
On 23 November 1969 he wrote to The Times newspaper saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming". The same month, he appealed to Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the United States in South Vietnam during the Vietnam War. The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Writers Union.
On 31 January 1970 Russell issued a statement condemning Israel's aggression in the Middle East, and in particular, Israeli bombing raids being carried out deep in Egyptian territory as part of the War of Attrition. He called for an Israeli withdrawal to the pre-Six-Day War borders. This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death.
Russell died of influenza on 2 February 1970 at his home, Plas Penrhyn, in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales. His body was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will, there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year.
Titles and honours from birth
Russell held throughout his life the following styles and honours:
- from birth until 1908: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell
- from 1908 until 1931: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell, FRS
- from 1931 until 1949: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, FRS
- from 1949 until death: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, OM, FRS
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Russell in 1916
Views on philosophy
Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646–1716), and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. He was particularly prolific in the field of metaphysics, the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology. When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects".
Views on religion
Russell described himself as an agnostic, "speaking to a purely philosophical audience", but as an atheist "speaking popularly", on the basis that he could not disprove the Christian God similar to the way that he could not disprove the Olympic Gods either. For most of his adult life Russell maintained that religion is little more than superstition and, despite any positive effects that religion might have, it is largely harmful to people. He believed that religion and the religious outlook serve to impede knowledge and foster fear and dependency, and are responsible for much of our world's wars, oppression, and misery. He was a member of the Advisory Council of the British Humanist Association and President of Cardiff Humanists until his death.
Views on society
Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life. Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes.
Russell argued for a "scientific society", where war would be abolished, population growth limited, and prosperity shared. He suggested the establishment of a "single supreme world government" able to enforce peace, claiming that "the only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation".
Russell was an active supporter of the Homosexual Law Reform Society, being one of the signatories of A.E. Dyson's 1958 letter to The Times calling for a change in the law regarding male homosexual practices, which were partly legalised in 1967, when Russell was still alive.
In "Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday" ("Postscript" in his Autobiography), Russell wrote: "I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken".
A selected bibliography of Russell's books in English, sorted by year of first publication:
- 1896. German Social Democracy. London: Longmans, Green.
- 1897. An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 1900. A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 1903. The Principles of Mathematics. Cambridge University Press.
- 1905. On Denoting, Mind, Vol. 14. ISSN: 00264425. Basil Blackwell.
- 1910. Philosophical Essays. London: Longmans, Green.
- 1910–1913. Principia Mathematica (with Alfred North Whitehead). 3 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- 1912. The Problems of Philosophy. London: Williams and Norgate.
- 1914. Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy. Chicago and London: Open Court Publishing.
- 1916. Principles of Social Reconstruction. London, George Allen and Unwin.
- 1916. Why Men Fight. New York: The Century Co.
- 1916. Justice in War-time. Chicago: Open Court.
- 1917. Political Ideals. New York: The Century Co.
- 1918. Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1918. Proposed Roads to Freedom: Socialism, Anarchism, and Syndicalism. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1919. Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin. (ISBN 0-415-09604-9 for Routledge paperback) (Copy at Archive.org).
- 1920. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1921. The Analysis of Mind. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1922. The Problem of China. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1923. The Prospects of Industrial Civilization, in collaboration with Dora Russell. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1923. The ABC of Atoms, London: Kegan Paul. Trench, Trubner.
- 1924. Icarus; or, The Future of Science. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
- 1925. The ABC of Relativity. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
- 1925. What I Believe. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
- 1926. On Education, Especially in Early Childhood. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1927. The Analysis of Matter. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner.
- 1927. An Outline of Philosophy. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1927. Why I Am Not a Christian. London: Watts.
- 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 and Its Connection with Political and Social Circumstances from the Earliest Times to the Present Day. 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. My Philosophical Development. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 1959. Wisdom of the West, edited by 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. Legitimacy Versus Industrialism, 1814–1848. London: George Allen & Unwin (first published as Parts I and II of Freedom and Organization, 1814–1914, 1934).
- 1965. On the Philosophy of Science, edited by Charles A. Fritz, Jr. Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company.
- 1966. The ABC of Relativity. London: George Allen & Unwin.
- 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.
- 1951–1969. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 vols., London: George Allen & Unwin. Vol. 2, 1956
- 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.
Russell also wrote many pamphlets, introductions, articles, and letters to the editor. One pamphlet titled, I Appeal unto Caesar: The Case of the Conscientious Objectors, ghostwritten for Margaret Hobhouse, the mother of imprisoned peace activist Stephen Henry Hobhouse allegedly helped secure the release of hundreds of conscientious objectors from prison.
His works can be found in 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 three volumes catalogue just his bibliography. The Russell Archives at McMaster University possess over 30,000 of his letters.
- Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
- Criticism of Jesus
- Doctrine of internal relations
- In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
- List of peace activists
- Neutral monism
- Russell's paradox
- Russell's teapot
- Structural realism (philosophy of science)
- Monmouthshire's Welsh status was ambiguous at this time.
- Ronald Jager (2002). The Development of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy, Volume 11. Psychology Press. pp. 113–114. ISBN 9780415295451.
- Nicholas Griffin, ed. (2003). The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell. Cambridge University Press. p. 85. ISBN 9780521636346.
- Roberts, George W. (2013). Bertrand Russell Memorial Volume. Routledge. ISBN 9781317833024.
- Rosalind Carey, John Ongley (2009). Historical Dictionary of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810862920.
- Ilkka Niiniluoto (2003). Thomas Bonk, ed. Language, Truth and Knowledge: Contributions to the Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. Springer. p. 2. ISBN 9781402012068.
- Wolfgang Händler, Dieter Haupt, Rolf Jelitsch, Wilfried Juling, Otto Lange (1986). CONPAR 1986. Springer. p. 15. ISBN 9783540168119.
- Hao Wang (1990). Reflections on Kurt Gödel. MIT Press. p. 305. ISBN 9780262730877.
- Phil Parvin (2013). Karl Popper. C. Black. ISBN 9781623567330.
- Roger F. Gibson, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Companion to Quine. Cambridge University Press. p. 2. ISBN 9780521639491.
- Robert F. Barsky (1998). Noam Chomsky: A Life of Dissent. MIT Press. p. 32. ISBN 9780262522557.
- François Cusset (2008). French Theory: How Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, & Co. Transformed the Intellectual Life of the United States. U of Minnesota Press. p. 97. ISBN 9780816647323.
- Alan Berger, ed. (2011). Saul Kripke. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781139500661.
- Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard, John Woods, Theo A.F. Kuipers (2007). "The Logical Approach of the Vienna Circle and their Followers from the 1920s to the 1950s". General Philosophy of Science: Focal Issues: Focal Issues. Elsevier. p. 432. ISBN 9780080548548.
- Dermot Moran (2012). Husserl's Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 204. ISBN 9780521895361.
- Grattan-Guinness. "Russell and G.H. Hardy: A study of their Relationship". McMaster University Library Press. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
- Douglas Patterson (2012). Alfred Tarski: Philosophy of Language and Logic. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780230367227.
- Rosalind Carey, John Ongley (2009). Historical Dictionary of Bertrand Russell's Philosophy. Scarecrow Press. pp. 15–16. ISBN 9780810862920.
- Ray Monk (2013). Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. Random House LLC. ISBN 9780385504133.
- Anita Burdman Feferman, Solomon Feferman (2004). Alfred Tarski: Life and Logic. Cambridge University Press. p. 67. ISBN 9780521802406.
- Andrew Hodges (2012). Alan Turing: The Enigma. Princeton University Press. p. 81. ISBN 9780691155647.
- Jacob Bronowski (2008). The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination. Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300157185.
- Nicholas Griffin, Dale Jacquette, ed. (2008). Russell vs. Meinong: The Legacy of "On Denoting". Taylor & Francis. p. 4. ISBN 9780203888025.
- Sankar Ghose (1993). "V: Europe Revisited". Jawaharlal Nehru, a Biography. Allied Publishers. p. 46. ISBN 9788170233695.
- "Street-Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties". Verso. p. 2005.
- Michael Albert (2011). Remembering Tomorrow: From SDS to Life After Capitalism: A Memoir. Seven Stories Press. ISBN 9781609800017.
- Jon Lee Anderson (1997). Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. Grove Press. p. 38. ISBN 9780802197252.
- Marc Joseph (2004). "1: Introduction: Davidson's Philosophical Project". Donald Davidson. McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP. p. 1. ISBN 9780773527812.
- James A. Marcum (2005). "1: Who is Thomas Kuhn?". Thomas Kuhn's Revolution: An Historical Philosophy of Science. Continuum. p. 5. ISBN 9781847141941.
- Nathan Salmon (2007). "Introduction to Volume II". Content, Cognition, and Communication : Philosophical Papers II: Philosophical Papers II. Oxford University Press. p. xi. ISBN 9780191536106.
- Christopher Hitchens, ed. (2007). The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever. Da Capo Press. ISBN 9780306816086.
- Gregory Landini (2010). Russell. Routledge. p. 444. ISBN 9780203846490.
- Carl Sagan (2006). Ann Druyan, ed. The Varieties of Scientific Experience: A Personal View of the Search for God. Penguin. ISBN 9781594201073.
- George Crowder (2004). Isaiah Berlin: Liberty, Pluralism and Liberalism. Polity. p. 15. ISBN 9780745624778.
- Elsie Jones-Smith (2011). Theories of Counseling and Psychotherapy: An Integrative Approach: An Integrative Approach. SAGE. p. 142. ISBN 9781412910040.
- "Interview with Martin Gardner". American Mathematical Society. June–July 2005. p. 603. Retrieved 5 January 2014.
- Peter S Williams (2013). S Lewis Vs The New Atheists. Authentic Media Inc. ISBN 9781780780931.
- Loretta Lorance, Richard Buckminster Fuller (2009). Becoming Bucky Fuller. MIT Press. p. 72. ISBN 9780262123020.
- Dr. K. Sohail (February 2000). "How Difficult it is to Help People Change their Thinking – Interview with Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy". Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- Bradley W. Bateman, Toshiaki Hirai, Maria Cristina Marcuzzo, ed. (2010). The Return to Keynes. Harvard University Press. p. 146. ISBN 9780674053540.
- Isaac Asimov (2009). I.Asimov: A Memoir. Random House LLC. ISBN 9780307573537.
- Paul Kurtz (1994). Vern L. Bullough, Tim Madigan, ed. Toward a New Enlightenment: The Philosophy of Paul Kurtz. Transaction Publishers. p. 233. ISBN 9781412840170.
- John P. Anderson (2000). Finding Joy in Joyce: A Readers Guide to Ulysses. Universal-Publishers. p. 580. ISBN 9781581127621.
- Paul Lee Thomas (2006). Reading, Learning, Teaching Kurt Vonnegut. Peter Lang. p. 46. ISBN 9780820463377.
- Gregory L. Ulmer (2005). Electronic Monuments. U of Minnesota Press. p. 180. ISBN 9780816645831.
- Paul J. Nahin (2011). "9". Number-Crunching: Taming Unruly Computational Problems from Mathematical Physics to Science Fiction. Princeton University Press. p. 332. ISBN 9781400839582.
- Mie Augier, Herbert Alexander Simon, James G. March, ed. (2004). Models of a Man: Essays in Memory of Herbert A. Simon. MIT Press. p. 21. ISBN 9780262012089.
- William O'Donohue, Kyle E. Ferguson (2001). The Psychology of B F Skinner. SAGE. p. 19. ISBN 9780761917595.
- Gustavo Faigenbaum (2001). Conversations with John Searle. LibrosEnRed.com. p. 28. ISBN 9789871022113.
- William M. Brinton, Alan Rinzler, ed. (1990). Without Force Or Lies: Voices from the Revolution of Central Europe in 1989–90. Mercury House. p. 37. ISBN 9780916515928.
- David Wilkinson (2001). God, Time and Stephen Hawking. Kregel Publications. p. 18. ISBN 9780825460296.
- Reiner Braun, Robert Hinde, David Krieger, Harold Kroto, Sally Milne, ed. (2007). Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9783527611270.
- Ned Curthoys, Debjani Ganguly, ed. (2007). Edward Said: The Legacy of a Public Intellectual. Academic Monographs. p. 27. ISBN 9780522853575.
- Azurmendi, Joxe (1999): Txillardegiren saioa: hastapenen bila, Jakin, 114: pp 17–45. ISSN 0211-495X
- Kreisel, G. (1973). "Bertrand Arthur William Russell, Earl Russell. 1872-1970". Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society 19: 583–526. doi:10.1098/rsbm.1973.0021. JSTOR 769574.
- The Life of Bertrand Russell. Knopf. 1976. p. 119. ISBN 9780394490595. "He became a relentless political activist during the First World War, and throughout his life was an ardent advocate of parliamentary democracy through the support first of the Liberal Party and then of Labour."
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Bertrand Russell", 1 May 2003
- "I have imagined myself in turn a Liberal, a Socialist, or a Pacifist, but I have never been any of these things, in any profound sense."—Autobiography, p. 260.
- Hestler, Anna (2001). Wales. Marshall Cavendish. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-7614-1195-6.
- Russell and G. E. Moore broke themselves free from British Idealism which, for nearly 90 years, had dominated British philosophy. Russell would later recall in "My Mental Development" that "with a sense of escaping from prison, we allowed ourselves to think that grass is green, that the sun and stars would exist if no one was aware of them ..."—Russell B, (1944) "My Mental Development", in Schilpp, Paul Arthur: The Philosophy of Betrand Russell, New York: Tudor, 1951, pp 3–20.
- Ludlow, Peter, "Descriptions", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/descriptions/
- Richard Rempel (1979). "From Imperialism to Free Trade: Couturat, Halevy and Russell's First Crusade". Journal of the History of Ideas (University of Pennsylvania Press) 40 (3): 423–443. doi:10.2307/2709246. JSTOR 2709246.
- Russell, Bertrand (1988) . Political Ideals. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10907-8.
- Samoiloff, Louise Cripps. C .L. R. James: Memories and Commentaries, p. 19. Associated University Presses, 1997. ISBN 0-8453-4865-5
- "The Bertrand Russell oGallery". Russell.mcmaster.ca. 6 June 2011. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 — Bertrand Russell: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950 was awarded to Bertrand Russell "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought". Retrieved on 22 March 2013.
- Sidney Hook, "Lord Russell and the War Crimes Trial", Bertrand Russell: critical assessments, Vol. 1, edited by A. D. Irvine, New York 1999, p. 178
- Paul, Ashley. "Bertrand Russell: The Man and His Ideas.". Archived from the original on 1 May 2006. Retrieved 28 October 2007.
- Russell, Bertrand and Perkins, Ray (ed.) Yours faithfully, Bertrand Russell. Open Court Publishing, 2001, p. 4.
- Bloy, Marjie, PhD. "Lord John Russell (1792–1878)". Retrieved 28 October 2007.
- Cokayne, G. E.; Vicary Gibbs, H. A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, eds. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed. 13 volumes in 14. 1910–1959. Reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000.
- Booth, Wayne C. (1974). Modern Dogma and the Rhetoric of Assent. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0226065723.
- The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866–1928 By Elizabeth Crawford
- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, p. 38
- The Nobel Foundation (1950). Bertrand Russell: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950. Retrieved on 11 June 2007.
- Lenz, John R. (date unknown). Bertrand Russell and the Greeks (PDF). Retrieved 27 October 2007.
- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, p. 35
- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell Ch. 2: "Adolescence", pp. 35–36.
- "Bertrand Russell on God". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1959. Retrieved 8 March 2010.[dead link]
- "Russell, the Hon. Bertrand Arthur William (RSL890BA)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- O'Connor, J. J.; Robertson, E. F. (October 2003). "Alfred North Whitehead". School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. Retrieved 8 November 2007.
- Griffin, Nicholas; Lewis, Albert C. "Bertrand Russell's Mathematical Education". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 44, No. 1. pp. 51–71. Retrieved 8 November 2007.(subscription required)
- Wallenchinsky et al. (1981), "Famous Marriages Bertrand...Part 1".
- "I went out bicycling one afternoon, and suddenly, as I was riding along a country road, I realised that I no longer loved Alys." —Autobiography, Ch. 6: 'Principia Mathematica', p. 150.
- Wallenchinsky et al. (1981), "Famous Marriages Bertrand...Part 3".
- Moran, Margaret (1991). "BERTRAND RUSSELL MEETS HIS MUSE: THE IMPACT OF LADY OTTOLINE MORRELL (1911–12)". McMaster University Library Press. Retrieved 1 March 2012.
- Kimball, Roger. "Love, logic & unbearable pity: The private Bertrand Russell". The New Criterion Vol. 11, No. 1, September 1992. The New Criterion. Archived from the original on 5 December 2006. Retrieved 15 November 2007.
- Simkin, John. "London School of Economics". Retrieved 16 November 2007.
- Russell, Bertrand (2001). Ray Perkins, ed. Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: Letters to the Editor 1904–1969. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. p. 16. ISBN 0-8126-9449-X. Retrieved 16 November 2007.
- Russell, Bertrand (1898) An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry, p. 32, re-issued 1956 by Dover Books
- "Bertrand Russell, biography". Nobelprize.org. Retrieved 23 June 2010.
- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Ch. 6: 'Principia Mathematica', p. 149.
- "Russell on Wittgenstein". Rbjones.com. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- Hochschild, Adam (2011). "'I Tried to Stop the Bloody Thing'". The American Scholar. Retrieved 10 May 2011
- Scharfenburger, Paul (17 October 2012). "1917". MusicandHistory.com. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
- Russell, Bertrand (1995). "A Summer of Hope". Pacifism and Revolution. Routledge Pty. Ltd. p. xxxiv. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
- "British Socialists – Peace Terms Discussed". The Sydney Morning Herald. 5 June 1917. Retrieved 7 January 2014.
- Vellacott, Jo (1980). Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War. Brighton: Harvester Press. ISBN 0-85527-454-9.
- "I found prison in many ways quite agreeable. I had no engagements, no difficult decisions to make, no fear of callers, no interruptions to my work. I read enormously; I wrote a book, "Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy"... and began the work for "Analysis of Mind"—The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Ch. 8: The First War, p. 256.
- "Trinity in Literature". Trinity College. Retrieved 23 June 2010.
- "M. P.'s Who Have Been in Jail To Hold Banquet". The Reading Eagle. 8 January 1924. Retrieved 18 May 2014.
- "Bertrand Russell (1872–1970)". Farlex, Inc. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
- Russell, Bertrand The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism by Bertrand Russell, 1920
- "Bertrand Russell Reported Dead" (PDF). The New York Times. 21 April 1921. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
- Russell, Bertrand (2000). "Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919–22". In Richard A. Rempel. The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell 15 (Routledge). lxviii. ISBN 0-415-09411-9.
- "It provided me with the pleasure of reading my obituary notices, which I had always desired without expecting my wishes to be fulfilled... As the Japanese papers had refused to contradict the news of my death, Dora gave each of them a type-written slip saying that as I was dead I could not be interviewed". – The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Ch. 10: China, pp. 365–366.
- Monk, Ray (September 2004). "'Russell, Bertrand Arthur William, third Earl Russell (1872–1970)'". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press). doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35875. Retrieved 14 March 2008.(subscription required)
- Inside Beacon Hill: Bertrand Russell as Schoolmaster. Jespersen, Shirley ERIC# EJ360344, published 1987
- "Dora Russell". 12 May 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
- Russell, Bertrand, "The Future of Pacifism", The American Scholar, (1943) 13: 7–13
- "I found the Nazis utterly revolting – cruel, bigoted, and stupid. Morally and intellectually they were alike odious to me. Although I clung to my pacifist convictions, I did so with increasing difficulty. When, in 1940, England was threatened with invasion, I realised that, throughout the First War, I had never seriously envisaged the possibility of utter defeat. I found this possibility unbearable, and at last consciously and definitely decided that I must support what was necessary for victory in the Second War, however difficult victory might be to achieve, and however painful in its consequences." – The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Ch. 12: 'Later Years of Telegraph House', p. 430.
- Leberstein, Stephen (November–December 2001). "Appointment Denied: The Inquisition of Bertrand Russell". Academe. Retrieved 17 February 2008.[dead link]
- Einstein quotations and sources. Retrieved 9 July 2009.
- "Bertrand Russell". 2006. Retrieved 17 February 2008.[dead link]
- Griffin, Nicholas (ed.) (2002). The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell. Routledge. p. 660. ISBN 0-415-26012-4.
- The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, p. 512
- Bertrand Russell on Zionism
- "A philosopher's letters – Love, Bertie". The Economist. 21 July 2001.
- R.W. Clark, The Life of Bertrand Russel, Knopf, 1976
- –06:04. "Radio 4 Programmes – The Reith Lectures". BBC. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- –06:04. "Radio 4 Programmes – The Reith Lectures: Bertrand Russell: Authority and the Individual: 1948". BBC. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- T. P. Uschanov, The Strange Death of Ordinary Language Philosophy. The controversy has been described by the writer Ved Mehta in Fly and the Fly Bottle (1963).
- The London Gazette: . 3 June 1949. Retrieved 11 March 2008.
- Ronald W. Clark, Bertrand Russell and His World, p. 94. (1981) ISBN 0-500-13070-1
- Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Bertrand Russell, 1872–1970 , p. 12
- Russell, Bertrand (1967). The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 3. Little, Brown. p. 157.
- Sanderson Beck (2003–2005). "Pacifism of Bertrand Russell and A. J. Muste". World Peace Efforts Since Gandhi. Sanderson Beck. Retrieved 24 June 2012.
- John H. Davis. The Kennedys: Dynasty and Disaster. S. P. Books. p. 437.
- Peter Knight, The Kennedy Assassination, Edinburgh University Press Ltd., 2007, p. 77. Also see "External Links": "Sixteen Questions on the Assassination (of President Kennedy)".
- Russell, Bertrand; Albert Einstein (9 July 1955). "Russell Einstein Manifesto". Retrieved 17 February 2008.
- Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (Psychology Press, 2005)
- Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell (pp. 212–213)
- "Jerusalem International Book Fair". Jerusalembookfair.com. Retrieved 1 October 2011.
- Bertrand Russell Appeals to Arabs and Israel on Rocket Weapons
- Aman (1967) at IMDb
- Bertrand Russell's Last Message.
- "Bertrand Russell Memorial". Mind 353: 320. 1980.
- Blanshard, in Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard, Open Court, 1980, p. 88, quoting a private letter from Russell.
- Russell, Bertrand (1947). "Am I An Atheist or an Agnostic?". Encyclopedia of Things. Retrieved 6 July 2005.: "I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist"… 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 prove (sic) 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 I ought to say that I am an Atheist..."
- 'Humanist News', March 1970
- Russell, Bertrand (1952). "Conclusions". The Impact of Science on Society.
- Russell, Bertrand (1936). Which Way to Peace? (Part 12). M. Joseph Ltd. p. 173.
- Russell, Bertrand (1954). Human Society in Ethics and Politics. London: G. Allen & Unwin. p. 212.
- Gay and Lesbian Humanist Association (2 November 1997). "Lesbian and Gay Rights: The Humanist and Religious Stances". Retrieved 17 February 2008.
- Russell, Bertrand (1968). The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1944–1969. Little, Brown. p. 330. Published separately as 'Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday' in Portraits from Memory.
- Hochschild, Adam (2011). To end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 270–272. ISBN 0-618-75828-3.
- 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.
- 1948, BBC Reith Lectures: Authority and the Individual A series of six radio lectures broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1948.
- John Newsome Crossley. A Note on Cantor's Theorem and Russell's Paradox, Australian Journal of Philosophy 51, 1973, 70–71.
- Ivor Grattan-Guinness. The Search for Mathematical Roots 1870–1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
- Alan Ryan. Bertrand Russell: A Political Life, New York: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Books about Russell's philosophy
- Alfred Julius Ayer. Russell, London: Fontana, 1972. ISBN 0-00-632965-9. A lucid summary exposition of Russell's thought.
- Celia Green. The Lost Cause: Causation and the Mind-Body Problem, Oxford: Oxford Forum, 2003. ISBN 0-9536772-1-4 Contains a sympathetic analysis of Russell's views on causality.
- A. C. Grayling. Russell: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.
- Nicholas Griffin. Russell's Idealist Apprenticeship, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991.
- A. D. Irvine (ed.). Bertrand Russell: Critical Assessments, 4 volumes, London: Routledge, 1999. Consists of essays on Russell's work by many distinguished philosophers.
- Michael K. Potter. Bertrand Russell's Ethics, Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2006. A clear and accessible explanation of Russell's moral philosophy.
- Elizabeth Ramsden Eames. Bertrand Russell's Theory of Knowledge, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1969. A clear description of Russell's philosophical development.
- P. A. Schilpp (ed.). The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, Evanston and Chicago: Northwestern University, 1944.
- John Slater. Bertrand Russell, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1994.
- A. J. Ayer. Bertrand Russell, New York: Viking Press, 1972, reprint ed. London: University of Chicago Press, 1988: ISBN 0-226-03343-0
- Ronald W. Clark. The Life of Bertrand Russell, London: Jonathan Cape,1975 ISBN 0-394-49059-2
- Ronald W. Clark. Bertrand Russell and His World, London: Thames & Hudson, 1981 ISBN 0-500-13070-1
- Rupert Crawshay-Williams. Russell Remembered, London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Written by a close friend of Russell's
- John Lewis. Bertrand Russell: Philosopher and Humanist, London: Lawerence & Wishart, 1968
- Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: Mathematics: Dreams and Nightmares London: Phoenix, 1997 ISBN 0-7538-0190-6
- Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: 1872–1920 The Spirit of Solitude Vol. I, New York: Routledge, 1997 ISBN 0-09-973131-2
- Ray Monk. Bertrand Russell: 1921–1970 The Ghost of Madness Vol. II, New York: Routledge, 2001 ISBN 0-09-927275-X
- George Santayana. 'Bertrand Russell', in Selected Writings of George Santayana, ed. Norman Henfrey, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, I, 1968, pp. 326–329
- Katharine Tait. My father Bertrand Russell, New York: Thoemmes Press, 1975
- David Wallechinsky & Wallace Irving. 1975–1981, "Famous Marriages Bertrand Russell & Alla Pearsall Smith Part 1" & "Part 3", on "Alys" Pearsall Smith, webpage content from The People's Almanac, webpages: Part 1 & Part 3 (accessed 18 May 2014).
- Alan Wood. Bertrand Russell The Passionate Sceptic London: George Allen & Unwin, 1957. Russell had a good opinion of this author.
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Other writings available online
- Works by Bertrand Russell at Project Gutenberg
- Works by Bertrand Russell on Open Library at the Internet Archive
- "A Free Man's Worship" (1903)
- "The Elements of Ethics" (1910)
- War and Non-Resistance (1915)
- The War and Non-Resistance — A Rejoinder to Professor Perry (1915)
- The Ethics of War (1915)
- Justice in Wartime (1917)
- Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel (1917)
- "The Conquest of Happiness" (1930)
- "Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?" (1930)
- Legitimacy Versus Industrialism 1814–1848 (1935)
- "Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?" (1947)
- "Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind" (1950)
- "What Desires Are Politically Important?" Bertrand Russell's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1950)
- An Outline of Philosophy (1951)
- Is There a God? (1952)
- Russell, Bertrand (1953). "What is an Agnostic?". Archived from the original on 2 February 2008.
- The Scientific Outlook (1954)
- "16 Questions on the Assassination" (of President Kennedy) (1964)
- Works by Bertrand Russell in audio format from LibriVox
- Sound clips of Bertrand Russell speaking
- Russell's BBC broadcast on "Man's Peril" (1954) and the "Russell–Einstein Manifesto" Press conference (1955)
- "What Desires Are Politically Important?" Bertrand Russell's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (1950)
- Works by or about Bertrand Russell in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
- Pembroke Lodge — childhood home and museum
- The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly
- The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
- Bertrand Russell at the Internet Movie Database
- Bertrand Russell in Japan
- O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Bertrand Russell", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews.
- Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery (London)
- Bertrand Russell entry by A. D. Irvine in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1 May 2003
- The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University
- Resource list
- The First Reith Lecture given by Russell (Real Audio)
- Nobel Prize
- Bertrand Russell at 100 Welsh Heroes
- Key Participants: Bertrand Russell – Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement: A Documentary History
- PM@100: LOGIC FROM 1910 TO 1927 Conference at the Bertrand Russell Research Centre (McMaster University, Ontario, Canada), to be held on 21–24 May 2010, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the publication of Principia Mathematica
- Bertrand Russell Society Bulletin (2013–present Editor Michael Berumen)
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