A (very) Brief History of Bertrand Russell

[Music] bertrand russell was a 20th century british mathematician logician philosopher and political activist amongst his incredible contributions he's notable for being one of the founders of analytic philosophy co-authoring principia mathematica an attempt at creating a logical basis for mathematics writing a history of western philosophy which covered briefly the history of philosophy from the pre-socratic era to the early 20th century and became a commercial success and being a profound social commentator and activists on matters such as war and freedom of expression russell was born on may 18th 1872 in trellic monmouthshire wales he was born to an influential liberal family of the british aristocracy and put emphasis on the aristocratic background the russell family had been prestigious since the rise of the tudor dynasty back in the late 1400s his parents were john russell a politician and writer whose father was asked twice by queen victoria to form a government and catherine luisa russell who is a suffragist and early advocate for birth control in the united kingdom russell was the youngest of three siblings with his other two siblings being frank and rachel rachel being seven years older and frank being four years older tragedy struck russell at a very young age his mother died of diphtheria in june of 1874 with rachel following not too long after and his father died of bronchitis in january of 1876 after suffering from a long bout of depression with both of their parents passing russell and his brother went to live with their paternal grandparents their grandfather died in 1878 so their grandmother became the dominant family figure her name was lady francis elliott and she was a woman of scottish presbyterian background she was highly religious and actually went through the effort of getting a court to set aside a provision from catherine that required the children be raised as agnostic frank was very vocal about his opposition to this highly religious upbringing that would follow but russell kept these feelings to himself despite her religious views lady francis held progressive views in other areas and influenced russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle his critical views on religion also began to form at age 15 when he began thinking about the validity of christianity he found out to be very unconvincing and ultimately came to the conclusion that there is no free will at age 17 he came to the conclusion that there is no life after death and by 18 he was a full-blown atheist based on the early tragedies in his life and bottling his feelings towards his grandmother's rule russell was very lonely in his adolescence and often thought of suicide he mentions in his autobiography that mathematics basically saved his life his desire to keep learning more kept him going he was educated by a series of tutors but it seems frank had the biggest influence introducing him to the works of euclid at age 11 actually describing this as one of the great events of his life in 1890 after winning a scholarship russell began studying mathematics and philosophy at trinity college in cambridge he quickly stood out in his departments of study and eventually met george edward moore an english philosopher who would later go on to become one of the founders of analytic philosophy alongside russell and alfred north whitehead an english mathematician and philosopher who made great influence on russell going on to work with him on foundational logic russell ultimately graduated with honors in both mathematics and philosophy by 1894 earning a philosophy fellowship in 1895. he began developing a work of political philosophy a year later entitled german social democracy and taught on the subject matter at the london school of economics in 1897 russell began an intensive study of foundational mathematics at trinity writing an essay on the kali klein metrics used for non-euclidean geometry it was titled an essay on the foundations of geometry in 1900 russell attended the first international congress of philosophy where he met giuseppe piano an italian mathematician notable for being one of the founders of mathematical logic and set theory and his axiomatization of the natural numbers and alessandro padoa an italian mathematician who is a contributor to the school of piano they provided russell a copy of piano's formulario mathematico an early work on rigorous set theory and after hearing piano's arguments at the congress russell read through the work and yielded russell's paradox which is stated as follows letting set r be defined as x such that x does not belong to x then r belongs to r if and only if r does not belong to r the significance of this paradox was that at the time it appeared no proof could be trusted with the apparent discovery that the logic underlying all of mathematics was contradictory this led to a large amount of work being done in the early part of the 20th century in logic set theory philosophy and the foundations of mathematics to try and patch this up with the influence from piano and padoa russell published the principles of mathematics in 1903 where he discussed his paradox introduced the theory of types to try and combat this paradox and defended logicism the view that mathematics and logic are identical the book became a classic reference for the foundations of mathematics though g h hardy an english mathematician who was notable for his work in number theory and mathematical analysis stated it would appeal more to philosophers than it would mathematicians expanding upon the work done in principles russell and whitehead released a three-volume work between 1910 and 1913 entitled principia mathematica this was a revolutionary work on the foundations of mathematics that covered set theory cardinal numbers ordinal numbers and the real numbers it originally aimed to be a second volume to principles but it turned out to be a much larger venture than anticipated clearly evident by the three volumes that make it up in fact a fourth volume on geometry was even planned but with all the work put into the three volumes russell and whitehead were just intellectually exhausted the aim at least of russell was a constructive theory that could maybe derive all of mathematics from purely logical axioms a big flaw was the reliance on three axioms that seem to not be true in just matters of logic the axiom of infinity which guarantees the existence of at least one infinite set the axiom of choice which basically states that a cartesian product of a collection of non-empty sets is not empty and the axiom of reducibility which states that any propositional function can be expressed by a formally equivalent predicative truth function aside from the axioms having issues of just being logical truths there was also the question of inconsistency whether a contradiction could be derived from the axioms and the question of completeness whether there exists a mathematical statement that can't be proven or disproven within the system this last question ultimately influenced kurt gertle's incompleteness theorems which were published in 1931 with how powerful both principles and principia ended up being russell quickly became world famous in mathematics and philosophy in 1910 russell became a lecturer at trinity college he was at one point considered for a fellowship but was denied due to his religious views while at trinity russell became phd advisor to ludwig wittgenstein an austrian british philosopher notable for his work in logic and various philosophical explorations such as in mathematics mind and language russell viewed him as a genius and a successor to the work he'd been doing in logic wittgenstein suffered from bouts of despair and also had quite a few phobias these features often drained russell but his view of wittgenstein's brilliance motivated him to keep guiding him with the work that russell and wickenstein did together russell ended up giving lectures on the material in 1918 which was on logical atomism the view that language can be analyzed in terms of aggregates of fixed irreducible units or elements wittgenstein was unable to give the lectures as he'd gone off to serve in the austrian army and ended up spending nine months as a prisoner of war in an italian prison as mentioned earlier russell's grandmother was a large influence on his views on social justice becoming one of the first people to engage in active pacifist activity since russell was unable to obtain the fellowship at trinity college he basically just didn't have job security so in 1916 he was dismissed from trinity college due to being convicted under the defense of realm act in 1914 which had created laws against speaking against world war one so he ended up getting a 100 quid fine which he refused to pay and instead of being sent to prison as he'd hoped his books ended up being sold at an auction to pay the fine g.h hardy wrote a pamphlet on this incident only sending it to russell to be sure there was no misinformation before publishing the pamphlet noted that the majority of fellows at trinity were opposed to letting russell go he ended up being reinstated in 1919 only to quit a year later of his own volition but the general public didn't know the relationship was no longer sour thus trinity was surrounded by yet more controversy over the perceived relationship with russell the resignation in 1920 was purely due to personal problems in his life he'd already requested a year off in 1919 to go lecture abroad and upon coming back he wanted one more year off to deal with his personal life so he felt it only fair to just resign in 1918 russell was again convicted forgiving lectures which were against the us entering world war one on the side of the uk he spent six months in brixton prison and described it as basically one of the most enjoyable times of his life as he was able to read and work unperturbed alongside being provided food and living quarters he apparently enjoyed it so much that one day he laughed quite loudly while reading something resulting in the ward and telling him to basically calm down that prison is a place for punishment in august of 1920 russell traveled to soviet russia with 24 people acting as a delegate of the british government the goal was to see the effects that the rise of the bolsheviks had initially russell had strong support for the revolution but after visiting he was highly opposed he described his interaction with lenin with whom he had an hour-long conversation with as disappointing viewing lenin as having impish cruelty coming back to the uk everyone russell had traveled with had high opinions of the bolsheviks despite russell's attempts at arguing against such a view one example russell attempted to use was the secret executions that happened during the nights as he had heard gunshots the argument others had were that they were just the sounds of cars backfiring even russell's lover at the time dora black a british author feminist and socialist campaigner who had visited russia independently was unconvinced by russell's arguments also sharing a high opinion of the revolution russell went on to write a series of articles about his trip entitled soviet russia 1920. in september of 1920 russell went to beijing to lecture on philosophy bringing dora with him seeing china as a new path exciting him greatly just before leaving china to go to japan russell fell sick with pneumonia and was misreported by japanese media as having died so when russell and dora visited japan dora messed with the japanese press by handing out notices that read mr bertrand russell having died according to the japanese press is unable to give interviews to japanese journalists needless to say the japanese didn't see the humor in this and were quite resentful before focusing more on his career let's discuss russell's marriages of which he had four his first marriage was to alice piercel smith first meeting her the summer of 1899 when he was just 17. she was five years older than him and had graduated from bryn mawr college they ended up marrying on december 13 1894 and the marriage began to fall to bits in 1901 in 1911 russell began an affair with lady odeline morrell an english aristocrat and society hostess notable for her interactions with the likes of aldous huxley t.s eliot and many other intellectuals of the time this affair began a long period of separation for smith and russell resulting in a divorce 10 years later during the years they were separated russell had many affairs which included moral and rumored affair with t.s eliot's first wife vivian haywood during russell's travels with his lover dora she ended up getting pregnant upon returning to the uk from these travels in august of 1921 dora was six months pregnant this motivated russell to expedite his divorce from alice and he was able to marry dora six days after it was finalized at the end of that september the pair ended up having three children together john conrad born november 16 1921 who later in his life was diagnosed with schizophrenia apparently making such a ridiculous speech in front of the house of lords that it was the only speech unrecorded catherine jane born december 29 1923 and harriet ruth born on july 8 1930. it must be noted that john's mental state was a constant point of contention between dora and russell russell supported the family during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics ethics and education of the layman influenced by the birth of his first two children russell became highly interested in early childhood education he wasn't keen on the traditional methods of the time and also felt that the progressive attempts were flawed so in 1927 himandora opened up the experimental beacon hill school they ended up running the school from different locations the first one being their home and the schooling led russell to publish an article titled on education especially early childhood ultimately russell and dora's relationship became tumultuous as dora ended up having an affair with the american journalist griffin barry whom while with russell ended up having two of barry's children the two separated in divorce in 1932 with russell leaving the beacon hill school andorra continuing until 1943. in january of 1936 soon after finalizing his divorce with dora russell married his third wife patricia spence she was an oxford undergrad at the time and had been his children's private teacher since 1930. they had one son together named conrad sebastian robert who went on to become a prominent historian and leading figure in the liberal democratic party in 1952 after growing unhappiness together spence and russell divorced with conrad not seeing wrestle again until 1968 which caused a permanent rift between him and his mother soon after the divorce with spence russell married edith finch on december 15 1952 he had known her since 1925 as he taught at bryn mawr college and shared a home with one of russell's friends for 20 years finch and russell stay together until his death their marriage being happy and loving in 1938 after a few years of kind of being all over the place russell moved to the united states he first lectured philosophy at the university of chicago and shortly thereafter moved to ucla's philosophy department in 1940 he was appointed to be a professor at the city college of new york but was met with massive opposition from the public which in turn led to his assignment being terminated the reason for this opposition he was deemed as morally unfit to teach due to his opinions particularly his progressive opinions on sexual morality which are detailed in his work marriage and morals from 1929 marital rape being one of the topics discussed his opposition went as far as being taken to the new york supreme court by a new york citizen named jean kay this man was afraid his daughter who didn't even attend the college would be harmed by russell's hiring needless to say many intellectuals protested this treatment including albert einstein who wrote great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds after this debacle russell ended up joining the barnes foundation an art collection and educational institution promoting the appreciation of art and horticulture he lectured the history of philosophy there until 1944 when he headed back to the uk and began working at trinity college again much of the material he lectured at the barnes foundation made up his work a history of western philosophy published in 1945 with a large portion of the research for the book being done by spence his third wife despite criticisms such as his over-generalizing the book became so popular that it gave him a very comfortable passive income for the remainder of his life [Music] after returning to the uk russell took part in many political activities and philosophical discussions through bbc broadcast for the rest of his life the brain's trust and third program in particular by this time he was world famous outside of his academic circles and the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles people profoundly cared for his opinions giving him even more pull and trying to handle world affairs between 1945 and 1948 just after the atomic bombs were let off over japan russell wrote letters and published articles and newspapers stating that it was morally justified and better to go to war against the ussr using atom bombs while only the us possessed them russell also stated this pretty clearly in a 1948 speech saying it would be morally worse to go to war after they possessed the atom bomb than before his logic was that if the ussr had no bomb the west's victory would happen faster with fewer casualties in september 1949 russell wrote that the ussr would be unable to develop nuclear weapons because of stalin's massive purges alas he had no knowledge at the time that the ussr just tested their first atom bomb a week before he'd written this so upon hearing the testing he swiftly declared a stance for complete abolition of atomic weapons throughout the 50s and 60s russell engaged in political causes related to nuclear disarmament writing a manifesto with einstein in 1955 calling for the disarmament and opposition to the vietnam war which continued well into the 60s forming the russell vietnam war crimes tribunal from 1966 to 1967 to investigate u.s conduct in vietnam between 1967 and 1969 russell published a three-volume autobiography first beginning working at 1951 so about 15 years in the making before he was ready on january 31 1970 russell issued his final political statement condemning israel's aggression in the middle east at the time specifically bombing raids being carried out deep in egyptian territory it was read out the day after his death at the international conference of parliamentarians on february 2nd 1970 russell died of influenza at his home in marion ethsier he was cremated in colwin bay on february 5th with only five people present and in accordance with his will no religious ceremony was held only a minute of silence for him his ashes being scattered in the welsh mountains later that year [Music] well there you have it a brief history of a key figure in foundational mathematics i'll close us out with a quote from russell's views on the will of doubt for the advancement of science and the protection of freedom of expression none of our beliefs are quite true all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error the methods of increasing the degree of truth in our beliefs are well known they consist in hearing all sides trying to ascertain all the relevant facts controlling our own bias by discussion with people who have the opposite bias and cultivating a readiness to discard any hypothesis which has proved inadequate these methods are practiced in science and have built up the body of scientific knowledge every man of science whose outlook is truly scientific is ready to admit that what passes for scientific knowledge at the moment is sure to require correction with the progress of discovery nevertheless it is near enough to the truth to serve for most practical purposes though not for all in science where alone something approximating to genuine knowledge is to be found men's attitude is tentative and full of doubt hope you guys enjoyed and i'll catch you next time you

Channel: moderndaymath

Views: 78,492

Keywords: history, mathematics, russell, paradox, bertrand russell, russell's paradox, whitehead, moore, logic, logicism, type theory, wittgenstein, einstein, nuclear, axiom of choice, axiom of infinity, axiom of reducibility, soviet, russia, beijing, japan, trinity, oxford, pearsall, dora black, lady ottoline, morrell, huxley, eliot, vietnam, diphtheria, euclid, pacifism, atheism, pacifist, atheist, social activist, activism, philosophy, polymath, spence, finch, principia mathematica, bryn mawr

Id: rSoO-bI8ax4

Length: 22min 11sec (1331 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 26 2020