Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century: Essays in His Honour

340 Pages·1967·13.677 MB·English

by  Ralph Schoenman (ed.)

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BERTRAND RUSSELL: PHILOSOPHER OF THE CENTURY
BY BERTRAND RUSSELL
The ABC of Relativity
Human Society in Ethics and Politics
The Impact of Science on Society
The Analysis of Matter
New Hopes For a Changing World
Authority and the Individual
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits
A History of Western Philosophy
Logic and Knowledge
The Principles of Mathematics
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy
The Analysis of Mind
Our Knowledge of the External World
An Outline of Philosophy
The Philosophy of Leibniz
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth
The Problems of Philosophy (O.U.P., 1912)
Principia Mathematica (3 vols., C.U.P., 1910-13)
(with A. N. Whitehead)
Philosophical Essays
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1872-1914
War Crimes in Vietnam
Portraits from Memory
Unpopular Essays
Unarmed Victory
Power
In Praise of Idleness
Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare
Why I Am Not a Christian
The Conquest of Happiness
Sceptical Essays
Fact and Fiction
Mysticism and Logic
The Scientific Outlook
Marriage and Morals
Has Man a Future?
Education and the Social Order
My Philosophical Development
On Education
Freedom and Organization, 1814-1914
Political Ideals
Principles of Social Reconstruction
The Prospects of Industrial Civilization
Roads to Freedom
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism
The Problem of China
German Social Democracy
The Amberley Papers
Satan in the Suburbs
Nightmares of Eminent Persons
The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell's Best
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Philosopher of the Century
ESSAYS IN HIS HONOUR
EDITED BY
RALPH SCHOENMAN
A. J. AYER VICTOR PURCELL, CMG
WERNER BLOCH HILARY PUTNAM
MAX BORN HERBERT READ
C. D. BROAD HANS REICHENBACH
ERICH FROMM MARIA REICHENBACH
ALDOUS HUXLEY DANA SCOTT
GEORG KREISEL REV. MICHAEL SCOTT
CONSTANCE MALLESON I. F. STONE
LINUS PAULING JULIAN TREVELYAN
W. V. QUINE
London
GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD
RUSKIN HOUSE MUSEUM STREET
h , ft? S
/ G-f 3
1967
FIRST PUBLISHED IN
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private
study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under
the Copyright Act, 1956, no portion may be reproduced
by any process without written permission. Enquiries
should be addressed to the publisher
© George Allen and Unwin Ltd., 1967
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
in 10 point Times Roman type
BY UNWIN BROTHERS LTD
WOKING AND LONDON
PREFACE
In preparing this volume I have drawn together essays which sug¬
gest Bertrand Russell’s achievement. In what roles is he to be
portrayed? Is it as ironist and puck, impassioned defier of cruel
authority, wit, iconoclast, moral reformer, literary stylist, teller of
parables and stories, educationalist, benefactor of great talents and
causes, teacher, social theorist, philosopher, political activist, liberator
of the abandoned, mathematician, logician or natural scientist—what
is the formula for intimating his range and rarity ?
I am not satisfied that this collection does what is needed. I do not
disparage any of the contributions, neither as an editor nor as a critic.
The essays achieve an approximation, hopefully overlapping but a
little, yet leaving gaps and depending ultimately on the reader to
supply a sense of unity for Russell’s diversity of excellence.
I should wish to place on one side the editor’s mask and speak
personally. Before knowing Russell he already loomed in my mind
as legendary—a man of da Vincian accomplishment, a rebel and
controversialist whose fierce independence stirred me deeply. I
discovered his work during my first year at Princeton University.
Professor H. H. Wilson had drawn me to Princeton with his written
attacks on the American witch-hunt, that ‘concentration camp for
the mind’ then under noisy construction.
On arrival in Princeton I cornered Wilson and demanded to know
if he were the H. H. Wilson who wrote for the Nation. Wilson asked
if I had unpacked my bags. I said I had. ‘Pack them’, he said. He
observed my shock and told me quietly: ‘If you stick around: two
things: (1) Maintain a sense of humour. (2) If you want to criticize
orthodoxy, master it.’ I was ill prepared for Princeton its callow
superiority, insularity and throw-back cruelty. I recall how I went
into battle. ‘You have’, Wilson cautioned me later, ‘an innate
capacity for erecting brick walls and using your head as a battering
ram.’
Russell’s Unpopular Essays was just out in paper. It gave me more
joy than I can recall receiving from anything in print. There was
‘An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish’ with its instance of the nun who
always wore a bathrobe when bathing. Asked why since no man
could see her, she replied, ‘Oh, but you forget the good God .
‘Apparently’, wrote Russell, ‘they conceive of the Deity as a Peeping
Tom whose omnipotence enables him to see through bathroom walls
but who is foiled by bathrobes.’
Every turn of phrase and chosen irony gave me pure delight. I felt
liberated. Days after reading the book I would smile and laugh to
1
BERTRAND RUSSELL
myself, ferret it out and re-read passages. I did not share the sentences
which pleased me to a point of tears. I was determined to acquire
the Russell touch—to become deft and light and devastating. At
Princeton there was a Chaucer specialist, Roberts, who was a fine
scholar, caustic and Catholic. ‘Well, Schoenman,’ he said one
afternoon, ‘what does the liberal mind have to say? We want the
lowest common denominator.’ ‘I’m an authoritarian, Mr Roberts ,
was my reply. ‘I was waiting for the word of God.’ I carried Russell’s
style in my head as best as my head could carry it. I read all I found
and began to proselytize.
My friend, Godfrey Winham, and a small group agreed with
conscious irony that Russell was our candidate for god. But we did
worship him. He offered us that just combination of passionate
rebellion and humour which saved us (we were certain) from the
priggish and unrelieved simple mindedness required to do battle
with America’s cruelty, crassness and the impenetrable, superior
manner of the chosen Princetonian.
I took up philosophy and planned to go to England for further
study. Refused a passport, I lost two years before obtaining one
through the courts. It was not long after arriving for post-graduate
studies at the lse that I joined in with the ‘new left’ and the cnd.
It was 1958.
Russell was President of the cnd. I first saw him in the flesh at
Easter in Trafalgar Square. His vigour and passion exulted me but it
did not occur to me to approach him. I had no justifiable reason for
doing so and I had a thing about ‘seeking out’ the great. It seemed to
me unbecoming, fetish-making and at war with the very reasons for
admiring men like Russell. Years earlier I had declined an invitation
to Albert Einstein’s by a friend of my parents who knew him,
because it seemed to me wrong to visit a great and admired man for
no better reason than the desire to see him. When I heard that
Einstein, whom I revered, had made some approving comment on
my Princeton activity I was elated but still determined not to see
him for the sake of it. I had done some work as an assistant at the
Institute for Advanced Study and met him by chance but did not
pursue this. This slightly ridiculous determination to avoid the great
without legitimate grounds for contact, stayed with me despite my
intense sense of loss and failed opportunity when Einstein died in
1955. I placed an anonymous rose at his door on the anniversary of
his death for three years running.
Although active in the cnd and on its Youth Executive I did not
approach Russell until April 1960.1 had definite views on the future
of the movement, views long discussed and carefully worked out.
2