Philosopher Profiles
Bertrand Russell
(18 May 1872 — 2 February 1970)
Russell, or “Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell” to his friends, is probably best known for his essay On Denoting in which he showed that using the word “the” was probably a lot more trouble than it was worth.
Russell was famously a strong atheist. In his popular book Why I Am Not A Christian Russell claims that sex before marriage is great and that Jesus was a bastard. He was also a strong pacifist and, as a result, served six-months in prison during the First World War; while in prison Russell would entertain the other prisoners by changing their names into definite descriptions — still popular in many prisons to this day.
Russell co-authored Principia Mathematica with Alfred North Whitehead. In this book Russell and Whitehead tried to derive all of mathematics from a well-defined set of axioms (probably just to make Frege feel even worse about failing to do so); of course many years later Gödel showed that it was not possible to do this — a result that Frege would have found very amusing had he not been dead.
Written By: Mark Wales
Created: 13th October, 2008 | Last Updated: —
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(Image of Bertrand Russell is copyright of the original owner. Used under Fair Use laws.)
Photograph
Russell was made entirely of wax
Stats
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Main Contributions:
Definite Descriptions, Destroying Frege -
Quotation:
“A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.” -
Key Areas:
Philosophy of Mathematics, Logic, Philosophy of Language -
Annoying Habits:
Describing people in mind-numbing detail instead of just using their names. -
Nicknames:
Berty, 'trand, B.R., 3rd Earl Russell
Top Trumps
- Beard: 0
- Fame: 5
- Logic: 5
- Readability: 4
- Contribution: 4
