On Denoting (1905)
Paper in the journal Mind setting out the theory of descriptions, analysing phrases like "the present King of France"
Philosophy
Bertrand Russell
1872–1970 · British (Welsh-born)
Analytic philosophy; logical atomism
Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, was a founder of analytic philosophy whose work in logic and the foundations of mathematics, above all Principia Mathematica with A. N. Whitehead, transformed the subject. His theory of descriptions became a model of philosophical analysis, and he was also a prolific popular writer, Nobel laureate and campaigning pacifist and anti-nuclear activist.
How to spot them
- ▸Russell's paradox (the set of all sets that are not members of themselves); Principia Mathematica with Whitehead
- ▸Theory of descriptions: "The present King of France is bald"
- ▸Russell's teapot; Why I Am Not a Christian; CND; Nobel Prize in Literature 1950
Key works
Principia Mathematica (1910–1913)
Three-volume work with Alfred North Whitehead attempting to derive mathematics from logic (logicism)
The Problems of Philosophy (1912)
Short introduction distinguishing knowledge by acquaintance from knowledge by description
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Lecture to the National Secular Society at Battersea rejecting the arguments for God and for Christianity
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
Bestselling survey from the pre-Socratics to his own day; its sales gave him lasting financial security
Key ideas
- Logicism: mathematics can be reduced to logic, a project shaken by the paradox he found in Frege's system
- Russell's paradox: the set of all sets that are not members of themselves is a member of itself if and only if it is not
- Theory of descriptions: "The present King of France is bald" is analysed as claiming that there is exactly one King of France and he is bald, so it is false rather than meaningless
- Knowledge by acquaintance (direct awareness, e.g. of sense-data) versus knowledge by description
- Logical atomism: the world consists of atomic facts which a logically perfect language would mirror
- Russell's teapot: the burden of proof lies on those making unfalsifiable claims, not on sceptics to disprove them
Quick-fire facts
- •Born at Trellech in Monmouthshire, Wales, into an aristocratic Whig family; his grandfather Lord John Russell was twice Prime Minister
- •John Stuart Mill was his secular godfather
- •Discovered his paradox in 1901 and communicated it to Gottlob Frege by letter in 1902
- •Imprisoned for six months in 1918 for anti-war writing, during which he wrote Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
- •Won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950
- •First president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (1958) and issued the Russell–Einstein Manifesto (1955)
- •Mentored the young Ludwig Wittgenstein at Trinity College, Cambridge, and wrote the introduction to the English Tractatus
- •Became 3rd Earl Russell in 1931 and died at Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, aged 97
Drill it — 10 cards
1 / 10new card
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Bertrand Russell
- Anthony Kenny — A New History of Western Philosophy