Bertrand Russell: Biography Of This Philosopher And Logician
There is a small number of authors in this world whose contributions transcended beyond their own lives to touch those who would succeed them in the incessant flow of time, to which we are all subject.
One of these figures is without a doubt that of Bertrand Russell, who was able to bequeath so many and diverse works (mathematics, philosophy, logic, politics, etc.) that it is difficult to pigeonhole him in any specific field of knowledge.
In this article we will review his life and work through a biography of Bertrand Russell placing special emphasis on the contributions he made during his long and exceptional life.
Bertrand Russell was born in the small town of Trellech (southeast Wales) in 1872, into an illustrious and aristocratic family of the time. His father, John Russell, was Viscount Amberley; and his mother, Katherine Louisa Stanley, was the daughter of the Baron of Alderley himself. In addition to all this, He was the godson of the philosopher John Stuart Mill, one of the promoters (along with Jeremy Bentham) of Western utilitarianism which is built on the usefulness of actions understood as all the positive effects they generate on the receiving individuals.
Although he had the fortune of coming into the world in a comfortable situation, adversity would not take long to come into his life: when he was barely six years old, diphtheria took the lives of his mother and his sister, which led his father into an inconsolable state of despair that would eventually lead to his death as well. Already an orphan, both he and his brother Frank had to move to Pembroke Lodge, a residence sponsored by the Crown.
Bertrand Russell He was a prolific thinker, who dedicated many hours a day to reflecting on the most varied topics imaginable He wrote profusely about Philosophy (since he was influenced by his uncle John Stuart Mill from a young age, although they did not meet personally), about pacifism (his long life allowed him to witness the two world wars that would devastate the planet in the first half of the last century. ) and even Physics (since he personally met Albert Einstein and both spoke out regarding the nuclear danger).
All these interests arose from his earliest childhood, in the unbearable loneliness of Pembroke Lodge. There he would spend his time among books, browsing that exuberant nature that characterized the gardens of the place.
The first intellectual passion of his life would be Euclidean geometry, which he was able to learn about through the help of his brother and which offered him the attractive opportunity to prove theorems for himself. However, he would end up feeling disillusioned by the axioms that were required to advance the subject, since he never tolerated unquestionability.
And Bertrand Russell It was characterized by rebelling against any attempt at imposition that could exist in the development of knowledge ; whether it was about Politics, Philosophy, Science, Mathematics or any other. For this reason he learned from many different sources, trying to overcome the limits that others tried to impose on knowledge. As a result, being just a child he wrote a compendium of notes (using the Greek alphabet) on the determinism that he observed in the laws of Physics, which came to torment him to the utmost degree.
Perhaps what made Bertrand Russell an immensely popular reference was his Principia Mathematica, which marked a before and after in logical thinking, and which continues to be an essential work in this field today. It is an encyclopedic creation written in close collaboration with the English mathematician Alfred North Whitehead, one of the most relevant figures in the academic life of the author in question.
Academic training
In his youth, armed with a rabid and insatiable curiosity, Bertrand Russell began his studies at Trinity College in the city of Cambridge (east of England), initially choosing Mathematics. There he would meet Alfred North Whitehead, who could clearly see an alert wit that deserved particular attention. It was at this moment where His tutor proposed him to join Los Apóstoles, a group of young people dedicated to reflecting on the most varied issues stripping them of all censorship or intellectual circumlocution.
Despite his enormous interest in Mathematics, Bertrand Russell discovered very soon that the academic dynamics of Trinity College did not satisfy his hunger for knowledge in the slightest, since they were reduced to the “simple” succession of assumptions that did not delve into the bowels of the Algebra or Geometry. This is how he decided to begin to expand frontiers, accessing the study of Philosophy (known as Moral Sciences at that time).
At this moment in your life He was influenced by the thought of idealist philosophers, a branch of knowledge that places knowledge on a purely intellectual level, indifferent to the direct experience of things. And at that time it was the predominant current in England, extending its dominance in the country’s universities (Plato, Leibniz, Hegel, etc.).
In the detailed study of Philosophy he found the ideal space to develop critical thinking about mathematics and other areas of his personal interest. In fact, he concluded his studies by writing the brilliant Essay on the Fundamentals of Geometry showing off his idealistic stance.
Although during his first journeys in Philosophy he would bow to the majority idealism, the reading of Francis H. Bradley (a neo-Hegelian philosopher characterized by his vehement opposition to growing empiricism) would represent for him the internal revolution that would confront him with those who until that moment had been his existential heuristics. All of this represented a definitive break with what was established in his mind, opening himself to ways of thinking that were very unusual in his academic environment.
Specifically, he found it impossible for science and numbers to survive the conceptions of the idealist doctrine of internal relations, a notion that postulated that things could only be known to the extent that absolute understanding of their multiple relations was available. All this led him to write On the Nature of Judgment and to retrace the steps of everything he had learned, being one of the authors who championed the historic British rebellion against idealism
His trips outside England, specifically to Germany (where he met some of the most eminent mathematicians of that time) and France (especially at the International Congress of Philosophy in Paris), represented an intellectual openness that was expressed in the intention definitive of articulating a logical foundation for mathematics and thereby overcoming the idealism of philosophers as prominent as Immanuel Kant.
From then on he adopted the thinking of the logicist school in his perception of mathematics from which every hypothesis should be tested using very simple premises expressed in logical terms, an idea from the mid-17th century with the monads of the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (which he adapted to the fields of Mathematics, Physics, Metaphysics, Psychology and Biology).
Logicist thinking allowed Bertrand Russell to discover inconsistencies in the works of many authors of his time, such as in Georg Cantor’s Set Theory, through what is known today as Russell’s Paradox Because the understanding of it is complex, it has often been transmitted with metaphors more accessible to most people, the best known of all being that of the Barber.
Specifically, this paradox tells the story of a non-existent country in which a kind of King prohibits barbers from shaving anyone who can do it themselves, because there is a shortage of these professionals and they must dedicate themselves only to those in need. . Nevertheless, There would be a tiny town in this country with only one barber, who would complain that he can’t shave himself (because he is capable of it) nor does he have another colleague nearby who can do it for him (since even if he had, he would be prohibited from touching his face).
Within the prolific work of Bertrand Russell (it is said that he wrote around 3000 words a day), the Principia Mathematica It is undoubtedly the key piece of his contributions. Is about a work of shared authorship, in which both Russell and Whitehead poured their efforts, since both shared a similar vision about the bases of this science. Russell delved into the passages whose content was philosophical in nature, and also into the conclusions that were derived from the various formulations.
It is a work composed of three volumes (originally there were going to be four) that deals with issues related to all types of mathematical prisms, and which is considered the fundamental reference of logic in this field, along with Aristotle’s Organon itself (a from which the syllogism was founded as a tool to achieve logical reasoning about the validity of any argument). Currently, both are basic in any scientific library worth its salt.
Other contributions by Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell, despite being a fervent pacifist in the First World War, positioned himself in favor of warmongering against the Nazis in the Second. This is because he could not assume the existence of a world in which National Socialist ideals reigned. He was imprisoned twice during his life, as a result of his anti-war actions (advising young people on how to avoid the call to combat, for example). On the last occasion he was imprisoned he was almost 90 years old.
The exquisiteness with which he wrote his ideas earned him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950, despite having dedicated his life to the universe of numbers (to a greater extent than to that of letters). It is said that the value of his reflections somehow made it easier for the world not to be plunged into nuclear holocaust, since he was convinced that avoiding this danger was the end of every thinker who would have lived through that time.
Bertrand Russell died at the age of 98, leaving behind a very long and productive life, bequeathing countless works for posterity. He passed away peacefully, hand in hand with Edith Finch, his last wife (he married four times during his life). It remains today an inescapable example of the search for truth of intellectual nonconformity and the fight for peace.
