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Mysticism and Logic and Other Essaysby Bertrand Russell

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In addition to the essays ennumerated in the catalog, there are several in this collection dealing with the ramifications of atomic physics on such philosophic concepts as materialism, idealism, determinism, and faith. ... Read more

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Philosophy is one of the most intimidating and difficult of disciplines, as any of its students can attest. This book is an important entry in a distinctive new series from Routledge: The Great Philosophers. Breaking down obstacles to understanding the ideas of history's greatest thinkers, these brief, accessible, and affordable volumes offer essential introductions to the great philosophers of the Western tradition from Plato to Wittgenstein.
In just 64 pages, each author, a specialist on his subject, places the philosopher and his ideas into historical perspective. Each volume explains, in simple terms, the basic concepts, enriching the narrative through the effective use of biographical detail. And instead of attempting to explain the philosopher's entire intellectual history, which can be daunting, this series takes one central theme in each philosopher's work, using it to unfold the philosopher's thoughts.Amazon.com Review
Volume I of Ray Monk's life of Bertrand Russell is apenetrating and highly critical portrait of one of this century's mostinfluential intellectual figures.Monk's talents as a writer and hisknowledge of philosophy produce clear and lucid prose that issophisticated in its understanding, yet doesn't shy away from thedishy details that make the book compelling.This initial volume takes usthrough the first fifty years of Russell's private, public, andintellectual life.We follow Russell through his boyhood andschooling, his two marriages and countless love affairs, hisfriendships with eminent intellectuals such as JosephConrad, T. S. Eliot (plus an affair with Eliot's wife Vivien), and the members of the BloomsburyGroup, up to the birth of Russell's son in 1921.The inner Russellis tumultuous, fighting off fears of madness, and full of insatiablelongings.We also see Russell's public life: his outspoken commitmentto pacifism which ultimately led to his imprisonment, as well as hisearly advocacy and later disillusionment with socialism.Ray Monk isparticularly adept at explicating Russell's philosophy: his desire tobring an end to interminable philosophical debates by developing newtechniques for the logical analysis of philosophical problems.In Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Dutyof Genius, Monk demonstrated that cracking good stories exist inthe arcana of academic philosophy and in the lives of philosophers.The vastness of Russell's life and the breadth of his interests, inaddition to the brilliance of his mind, makes Monk's story all themore captivating. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Reaching an overwhelming sense of the man
This is simply amazing. Not only did BR write a thorough journal, but his friends, lovers, and associates, and their friends, lovers, and associates did too. And letters from all to all practically! We come to a sense of understanding BR et al better than they knew themselves. More: this has everything to do with the philosophy of BR. I wouldn't have believed it and often I feel wonderment about why we needed to know "that", good grief, when low and behold, there is the connection with the work. Had it not been for the life BR lived we would not have his work. It is enough to make you certain that our paradigm - learn the history of the man to understand him - is certainly a winning paradigm because of what it shows. It also encourages me to reflect on my own life. How can one read so intensely into the life of another without it having such an effect? Thoughts like: remember this! It was just so. BR expresses it so well. And Ray Monk does such a good job making it accessible, certainly having found it reliving the life of BR from the philosophers point of view as well as the lovers and students. Since I have also read Wittgenstein, I loved the cross over and the record of the various steps in their relationship felt the richer for having read both. Life is great when you have great books like this on a beautiful summer evening.

An idealist mathematician turned sceptic
The first part of Ray Monk's outstanding biography of Bertrand Russell centres more on his love life than on his philosophical or political evolution.
It shows us a restless Russell, fearing (hereditary) madness and becoming a real womanizer after the break-up of his first marriage.
The number of letters which Russell wrote to his (ex-)lovers is truly amazing and Ray Monk quotes profusely from them.
The reactions of the husband of Ottoline Morrell, Russell's lifelong friend and most important mistress, shows that apparently promiscuity in the British High Society was not a problem.
On the philosophical front, Ray Monk doesn't explain very clearly Russell's essential logical discoveries (see B. Magee - Confessions of a philosopher). On the other hand, the importance of Peano's work, his clashes with Wittgenstein (who torpedoed a big part of Russell's work) and D.H. Lawrence (for Russell, a fascist) as well as his questioning of G. Frege (whose work was annihilated by one question by Russell) are very well documented.
Politically, Russell became a utopian socialist (no private property, which was the source of all evil) and later a real liberal fighting for universal suffrage also for women.
A key event in his life was the outbreak of WWI. It shattered definitively his trust in mankind. He became a sceptic and a convinced pacifist for the rest of his life.

Although I found that there were too many love letter excerpts in this book, it remains a fascinating read.

One of the most brilliantly significantbooks Ever written!
This is one of the most stimulating, dazzling, intellectually satisfying, strangely comforting books that I have ever read.

As an academic myself, devoted to the lonely quest for truth, this book was strangely comforting, as I could empathise with some of the struggles Bertrand Russell endured.

This book (along with Lance Armstrong's "It's not about the Bike" and Dag Hammarskjold's "Markings") is very important to me. By reading the many excerpts it includes of Russell's letters and diaries, I have come across many stunningly phrased morsels of eloquence - yes, Russell's behaviour is sometimes horrifying, yet rather than this make the book unpleasant, it actually made it a learning experience. I learnt things about humanity that were meaningful to me, and I experienced (and learnt from) the many exquisite phrases.

Any negativity concerning Russell's character was, from my perspective, *completely* eclipsed by the rewarding, educating and intellectually and emotionally intense experience of reading this remarkable book.
I do not that often discover books that are very meaningful and brilliant; I would be very happy if over the next few years I accidentally stumble upon a *handful* of books that measure up to the standards that my current favourites have achieved. Until then I will just have to re-read my favourites.

(I found this book so dense with insight that I actually started a file on my computer where I type notes from this biography concerning ideas and phrases that were particularly interesting/beautiful.)

A biography the size of the Bertrand Russell
Strange as it may seem, I began to read this book after reading its sequel, but got the same good impression of it all, because what counts most is both the stature of Bertrand Russel and the way it is portrayed by Ray Monk.
"The Spirit of Solitude" is simply fascinating, covering the years Russell dedicated to the philosophy of Mathematics, a subject that is so complex, that completely absorved him, causing his first marriage to collapse amidst great personnal pain to his wife, making Russell to seek love comfort with women who could fulfill the maternal absence to a man who lost both his parents when a child. The pressure exerted upon him by his grandmother is also elucidative on the ways he chose to mantain his personall life amid a curtain of secrecy, something instrumental in his future evolution as a philosopher.
The apex of his career was hit when he published, along with Whithehead, the voluminous Principia Mathematica, a 4.500 pages book, which took some 10 years of his best efforts, and which was dedicated to the foundations of philosophical thinking in Mathematics. It was such a difficult book to read that even Russell expected that no more than a handfull of great mathematicians could read and understand what was there meant.
This book is a must for everyone interested in Philosophy and the philosophy of mathematical thinking.

Yes, it is as good as they say.
I can only agree with what has gone before. A truly wonderful "book", if that's what you call these short 58 page things. Takes the view that the "fall" from Platonism to nominalism in mathematics is the key to Russell's development as a philosopher.I don't know if it's true or not, since Russell had such a complicated life, but it is an utterly fascinating hypothesis, and completely accessible, as Monk unfolds the account. The writing is so smooth I could barely tell when Monk transitioned to new topics. ... Read more

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First published in 1984 as part of The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Theory of Knowledge represents an important addition to our knowledge of Russell's thought. Russell's subsequent difficulties in presenting his theory of knowledge, brought on by what he considered to be devastating criticisms of Wittgenstein, led to both his abandonment of this work and to a major transformation in his thought. Theory of Knowledge, now available for the first time in paperback, gives us a picture of one of the great minds of the twentieth century at work. It is possible to see the unsolved problems left without disguise or evasion. This second edition has retained the full scholarly introduction. The photographs of the manuscript, appendices, and notes on textual matters have been eliminated to provide a concise and accessible guide to understanding both Russell's own thought and his relationship with Wittgenstein. ... Read more

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This book has DirectLink Technology built into the formatting. This means that we have made it easy for you to navigate the various chapters of this book. Some other versions of this book may not have the DirectLink technology built into them. We can guarantee that if you buy this version of the book it will be formatted perfectly on your Kindle. ... Read more

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This pioneering study of Bertrand Russell's social and political thought between 1896 and 1938 is the first book to undertake a thorough investigation of the intellectual and cultural context out of which Russell's ideas emerged. Maintaining a sympathetic but critical stance towards Russell's almost innumerable political postures, the author renders that thought both plausible and coherent by placing its development against a significant historical background. The result is a highly original view of an important and enduring figure. ... Read more

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The Analysis of Matter is one of the earliest and best philosophical studies of the new physics of relativity and quantum mechanics. Written at the time of major new developments in physics and just when quantum mechanics was being developed, Russell offers an analysis of the concepts and problems that are central to a philosophical understanding of physics, and argues for a revised concept of matter. The Analyis of Matter demonstrates the logical structure of the world and develops Russell's views on the philosophy of science out of the theories of such scientists as Einstein, Bohr and Heisenberg.

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This is the 1927 Norton, American printing of Russell's An Outline of Philosophy, published as, simply, Philosophy. 307 pages. ... Read more

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This Halcyon Classics ebook PROPOSED ROADS TO FREEDOM was written by British philosopher and social critic Bertrand Russell.Russell (1872-1970) led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 1900s. He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Frege and his protégé Wittgenstein, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians.He was a prominent anti-war activist, championing free trade between nations and anti-imperialism.Russell was imprisoned for his pacifist activism during World War I, campaigned against Adolf Hitler, criticized Soviet totalitarianism, and the United States' involvement in the Vietnam War, and was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament.Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950, "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

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Four works by Bertrand Russell in one collection with an active table of contents. Works include:

The Analysis of Mind
Political Ideals
The Problems of Philosophy
Proposed Roads to Freedom
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No online description is currently available. If you would like to receive information about this title, please email Routledge at info@routledge-ny.com ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

WAIT!This is not what it appears to be!
The advertising makes this appear to be a new printing of a wonderful old book that has gone out of print.That isn't what it is at all.

An outfit called General Books took an old copy of this out-of-print book, scanned it, used a computer program to covert it into text, and then printed it out (with new pagination, bearing no relation whatever to the original pagination) and bound it.The result is a complete mess.There are misspelled words everywhere (the software apparently isn't so good at recognizing letters in older fonts); the footnotes and chapter headings were absorbed into the text; the original page numbers are lost; the table of contents is completely useless because it gives page numbers corresponding to the original pagination.There are also many apparently meaningless long strings of characters.

For example, here is how the book begins:

ffamititrge:PBINTED BY J. and O. F. OLAT AT THE TJNIVEBSITT PRESS.PEEFACE.The history of philosophy is a study which proposes to itself two somewhat "different objects, of which

and here's a randomly selected passage from page 85:

It remains to say something concerning time and change.Here we have fewer passages to refer to, and so far as I know no thoTOugh discussion after Leibniz's philoso phy i s matare.

What a mess!
This is probably the worst produced and printed book I've seen in many years.Typos, misprints, paragraphs separated.

Note that I'm not talking about the content, which remains to be read, but rather about the production itself.It is so bad that even glancing through it immediately highlights problems - no need to look hard.

Historically important work, but dismissible for its contents
Russell's famous work is of great importance historically because it set the tone for Leibniz study for a generation. Today this tone has been completely rejected by modern Leibniz scholars. Russell's work says more about Russell than Leibniz. Russell uses Leibniz as a punching bag to push his dogma. I recommend the many papers and journal entries written over the last 100 years which basically have proven almost every major attack Russell made on Leibniz to be unjustified. Still, this book is a must read for any serious Leibniz scholar for its historical importance alone and to understand why so many scholars after Russell had the narrow interpretation of Leibniz that they did.

Important for the history of predicate logic crtiques
As Russell lays out Leibniz' system giving five axioms and critiques two as false, we have an interesting historical analysis of predicate logic as well as the analytic - synthetic distinction both pre-Kant, and a la Russell. This is certainly bound to interest logicians and historians of logic as well as Leibniz students. ... Read more

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This second of two volumes of Russell's letters covers most of Russell's adult life, the period during which he wrote over thirty books. Alongside Russell's Autobiography, these letters present the most accurate and fascinating account of his life yet published. They contain letters to some of the greatest figures of the twentieth century, including Ho Chi Minh, Lyndon Johnson, Tito, Jawaharlal Nehru and Jean-Paul Sartre, all but three which are previously unpublished. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

AN OUTSTANDING SELECTION
This book is recommended reading for anyone interested in a fresh approach to the workings of the mind one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century.
It is a selection of 338 letters written by Bertrand Russell between 1914 and 1970. Sifting though more than 40,000 letters is no simple feat. Fortunately the editor is Nicholas Griffin, director of the Bertrand Russel Research Center at McMaster University in Ontario. As editor of Russell's "Collected Papers", he is in an enviable position to provide us with the juiciest tidbits of Russell's dry humour, as well as a portrait of a passionate man.
The editor commentaries to the letters are useful in order to better understand and put in perspective some events and people mentioned by this very extraordinary thinker. One that you have to know well, if you are to understand how could he write in 1967
that "a great deal of work has come upon me, neglect of which might jeopardise the continuation of the human being......" Kudos to the editor. ... Read more

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Nightmares of Eminent Persons: And Other Stories by Bertrand Russell ... Read more

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fascinating nightmares
I read this book many years ago when it was first published in paperback.Ilost access to that copy and I am pleased that Nightmares has been reprinted.This is one of the most fascinating books that I have ever read.It is both thought-provoking and highly entertaining.The characterizations and settings are vivid.There are several long dreams, including one about competing cults that promise that either molybdenum or the magnetic pole will cure all ailments, and another about a resurgent Inca civilization dominating the earth.The nightmares are attributed to eminent persons of the 1950s' i.e., Dean Acheson's Nightmare, etc.You won't be able to put this one down. ... Read more

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Insightful and highly accessible, this selection of seven essays displays Russell-s signature brilliance of exposition in the examination of ethical subjects and the nature of truth, and marks an important period in the evolution of thought of one of the worlds most influential thinkers. ... Read more

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In Bertrand Russell in 90 Minutes, Paul Strathern offers a concise, expert account of Russell's life and ideas, and explains their influence on man's struggle to understand his existence in the world. The book also includes criticisms and comments on Russell's writings; a brief list of suggested reading for those who wish to push further; and chronologies that place Russell within his own age and in the broader scheme of philosophy. ... Read more

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90 Minutes with Bertrand Russell
This short book of 92 pages is one of the entries in Strathern's 90 Minutes series. If you know absolutely nothing about Russell you could begin with this book-- but you will need more than it provides to really understand this major philosopher. The heart of this book is the 63 page essay "Russell's Life and Works." Strathern describes how Russell revolted against the prevailing neo-Hegelian idealism he found at Cambridge as a student and developed a philosophy based on logical analysis which he later called "logical atomism" because it stressed the discreteness of things rather than seeing them as all interelated parts of the neo-Hegelian "Absolute." The best part of the book is the non-technical explanation of "Russell's Paradox" and his "Theory of Types." Unfortunately, Strathern does not present Russell's mature philosophy. He gives an overview of Russell's thoufgr based on works from which he later diverged. Strathern should have consulted Russell's 1959 "My Philosopical Development" where he gives his final views on many of the topics discussed in this small book. Russell may need more than ninety minutes! ... Read more

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The Problems of Philosophy. please visit www.valdebooks.com for a full list of titles ... Read more