Bertrand Russell

Lore & Background

Russell was born into the prominent Russell family, to Viscount and Viscountess Amberley. He was orphaned at the age of four and moved into Pembroke Lodge to live with his grandparents, the Earl and Countess Russell. The Earl Russell had twice been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1846–1852; 1865–1866) and died in 1878, leaving Russell in the care of his grandmother. He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1890 and graduated in 1893 with a Bachelor of Arts. At Cambridge, Russell was introduced to philosophy through figures such as G. E. Moore and Alfred North Whitehead. Russell also came to oppose British idealism and led the 'revolt against idealism' with Moore. Russell was one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians 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. Together with his former teacher Alfred North 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'. He was a pacifist who championed anti-imperialism and chaired the England-based India League. He went to prison for his pacifism during the First World War, and he initially supported appeasing Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1943, describing war as a necessary 'lesser of two evils'. In the wake of the Second World War, 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. He later criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, condemned the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, and became 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'. He was also the recipient of the De Morgan Medal (1932), Sylvester Medal (1934), Kalinga Prize (1957), and Jerusalem Prize (1963).

Reader's Guide

Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born at Ravenscroft, a country house in Trellech, Monmouthshire, on 18 May 1872, into an influential and liberal family of the British aristocracy. His parents were Viscount and Viscountess Amberley. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous. Lord Amberley consented to his wife's relationship with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Lord Amberley, a deist, asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather. Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings later influenced Russell's life. Russell's paternal grandfather, Lord John Russell, later 1st Earl Russell, had twice been Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the 1840s and 1860s. A member of Parliament since the early 1810s, he met Napoleon in Elba. 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 the leading Whig families and participated in political events from the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536–1540 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–1689 and the Great Reform Act in 1832. Lady Amberley was the daughter of Lord and Lady Stanley of Alderley. Russell often feared the ridicule of his maternal grandmother, one of the campaigners for education of women. Russell had two siblings: brother Frank (seven years older), 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 after a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of 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 kind old man in a wheelchair. His grandmother, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the central family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth. The Countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family and 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)

Did You Know?

• Russell was orphaned at age four and raised by his grandparents.
• He won a scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1890.
• Russell co-wrote Principia Mathematica with Alfred North Whitehead.
• He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.
• Russell went to prison for his pacifism during the First World War.

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (May 18, 1872 – February 2, 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. In 1950, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature." — Bertrand Russell "I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness." — Bertrand Russell "Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking." — Bertrand Russell "The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt." — Bertrand Russell