Bertrand Russell: biography of this philosopher and logician.

A review of the life and work of one of Britain's most important philosophers and mathematicians.

There are a small number of authors in this world whose contributions transcended beyond their own lifetime to touch the lives of those who would succeed them in the incessant flow of time, to which we are all subject.

One of these figures is undoubtedly Bertrand Russell, who was able to bequeath so many and so diverse works (mathematics, philosophy, logic, politics, etc.) that it is difficult to pigeonhole him in any particular field of knowledge.

In this article we will review his life and work by means of a biography of Bertrand Russellwith a special emphasis on the contributions he made during his long and exceptional life.

• Related article, "How are Psychology and Philosophy similar?"

Brief biography of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was born in the small village 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 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 principle of utility.which is based on the utility of actions understood as all the positive effects they generate on the recipient individuals.

Although he was fortunate enough to come into the world in a well-to-do situation, adversity was not long in coming: when he was barely six years old, diphtheria took the lives of his mother and sister, which led his father to an inconsolable state of despair that would eventually lead to his death. Now an orphan, both he and his brother Frank had to move to Pembroke Lodge, to a Crown-sponsored residence.

Bertrand Russell was a prolific thinker, who spent many hours a day reflecting on the most varied subjects imaginable..... He wrote profusely on philosophy (as he was influenced by his uncle John Stuart Mill from an early age, although they never met personally), on 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 (as he met Albert Einstein personally and both spoke out about the nuclear danger).

All these interests arose from his earliest childhood, in the unbearable solitude of Pembroke Lodge. There he would spend his time among books, browsing through the exuberant nature that characterized the gardens of the place.

The first intellectual passion of his life would be Euclidean geometry, which he was introduced to through the help of his brother and which offered him the attractive opportunity to prove theorems on his own.which he was able to learn 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 in the subject, since he never endured the unquestionability.

Bertrand Russell was characterized by his rebellion against any attempt at imposition that might exist in the development of knowledge, be it about Politics, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophy and Philosophy.whether it was about politics, philosophy, science, mathematics or any other subject. For this reason he learned from many different sources, trying to circumvent the limits that others tried to impose on knowledge. As a result, when he was just a child, he wrote a compendium of notes (using the Greek alphabet) on the determinism he observed in the laws of Physics, which came to torment him to a great extent.

Perhaps what made Bertrand Russell an immensely popular reference was his Principia Mathematica, which marked a before and after in logical thought, 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 formation

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) choosing Mathematics at first. There he would meet Alfred North Whitehead, who could see without any doubt an awakened wit that deserved particular attention. It was at this time that his tutor proposed him to join the Apostles, a group of young people dedicated to reflect on the most varied issues, stripping them of any censorship or intellectual circumlocution.and stripped of all censorship or intellectual circumlocution.

Despite his enormous interest in Mathematics, Bertrand Russell soon discovered that the academic dynamics of Trinity College did not satisfy his hunger for knowledge in the least, since they were reduced to a "simple" succession of assumptions that did not delve into the depths of Algebra or Geometry. It was thus that he decided to begin to expand his frontiers, accessing the study of Philosophy (known as Moral Sciences at that time).

At this point in his life he was influenced by the thought of the idealist philosophersa branch of knowledge that places knowledge on a purely intellectual plane, indifferent to the direct experience of things. At that time it was the predominant current in England, extending its dominance in the universities of the country (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, demonstrating his ideal stance on mathematics.in which he displayed his idealistic stance.

A change of existential position

Although during his first steps in philosophy he would adhere to the majority idealism, the reading of Francis H. Bradley (a neo-Hegelian philosopher characterized by his vehement opposition to the growing empiricism) would mean for him the inner revolution that would confront him with those who until then had been his existential heuristics. All this meant a definitive break with what was established in his mind, opening him up to ways of thinking that were very uncommon 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 there was absolute understanding of their multiple relations. All this led him to write On the Nature of Judgment and to retrace the steps of all that he had learned, being one of the authors who one of the authors who led the historic British rebellion against idealism..

His travels outside England, specifically to Germany (where he came to meet some of the most eminent mathematicians of the time) and France (most notably at the International Congress of Philosophy in Paris), brought about an intellectual opening that was expressed in the definite intention to articulate a logical foundation for mathematics and thereby overcome the idealism of such prominent philosophers as Immanuel Kant.

He adopted thereafter the thinking of the logicist school in his perception of mathematics, from which all hypotheses and hypotheses are based.He then adopted the thinking of the logicist school in his perception of mathematics, from which every hypothesis should be proved by means of very simple premises expressed in logical terms, an idea originating in 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, by means of what is known today as Russell's Paradox. Because its understanding is complex, it has often been conveyed with metaphors more accessible to most people, the best known of these being that of the Barber.

Specifically, this paradox tells the story of a non-existent country in which a sort of King forbids barbers to shave anyone who can do it himself, because there is a shortage of these professionals and they must devote themselves only to the needy. Nevertheless, there would exist in this country a tiny village in which there would be only one barber, who would complain that he could not 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 did, he would be forbidden to touch his face).

Principia Mathematica

Among the prolific work of Bertrand Russell (it is said that he wrote about 3000 words a day), the Principia Mathematica is undoubtedly the centerpiece of his contributions. It is a work of a work of shared authorship, in which both Russell and Whitehead put their efforts, as both shared a similar vision of the mathematical principles.both shared a similar vision of the foundations of this science. Russell went in depth into the passages whose content was of a philosophical nature, and also into the conclusions derived from the various formulations.

It is a work composed of three volumes (originally there were to be four) that deals with issues related to all kinds of mathematical prisms, and is considered the fundamental reference of logic in this field, along with Aristotle's very own Organon (from which the syllogism was founded as a tool to reach logical reasoning on the validity of any argument). Currently, both are basic in any self-respecting scientific library.

Other contributions of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell, despite being a fervent pacifist in World War I, took a position in favor of warmongering against the Nazis in World War II. This was because he could not accept the existence of a world in which National Socialist ideals prevailed. 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 confined, 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 the nuclear holocaust, since he was convinced that avoiding this danger was the goal of every thinker who would have lived at that time.

Bertrand Russell died at the age of 98, leaving behind him 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 lifetime). He remains today an inescapable example of the search for truth.The work is a reflection of intellectual nonconformism and the struggle for peace.

Bibliographical references:

• Pellicer, M.L. (2010). Bertrand Russell: Centenary of Principles of Mathematics. Revista de la Real Academia de Ciencias Exactas, Física y Naturaleza, 104(2), 415 - 425.
• Pérez-Jara, J. (2014). The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell. Pentalfa Ediciones: Oviedo (Spain).