Bertrand Russell
Clarify thought with logic, doubt dogmas.
Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970, United Kingdom) : analytic philosophy and empiricism. To think clearly is first of all to believe only what we have reasons to believe. Russell applies this rule everywhere: in logic, where he tries to ground mathematics; in knowledge, where he shows that even our surest expectations rest on a principle experience cannot prove; and in religion, where he holds that the burden of proof lies on the one who asserts. On AskPhilosophy: 6 reconstructed arguments, 5 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 4 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
With Frege and Wittgenstein, he founded analytic philosophy: tackling problems through the logical analysis of language. His Principia Mathematica (with Whitehead) shaped modern logic. For the general public, he remains the clearest voice of reasoned doubt about religion: the celestial teapot, the inductivist chicken, the debate with Father Copleston.
His times
Grandson of a Prime Minister, orphaned very young, raised by a deeply pious grandmother. A pacifist, he served six months in prison in 1918 for an anti-war article. In 1940 a New York court barred him from teaching because of his views on morals and religion. Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950, he campaigned against nuclear weapons until the age of 97.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceFacing Copleston, he calls himself an agnostic: God's non-existence cannot be proved. But he sees "no reason" to believe the dogmas of theology. An agnostic in theory, an atheist in practice: as he himself said in a 1947 pamphlet, not yet in our corpus.
He splits the old debate in two: the rationalists were right about logical principles, known without experience; the empiricists were right about existence, which only experience can reveal.
Neither sceptic nor dogmatist: all our beliefs may be mistaken and should keep "some slight element of doubt", but a belief can only be rejected on the ground of another. About the future, probability is all we can seek.
In 1903 he holds it "nearly certain" that our thoughts and loves are but the outcome of collocations of atoms, and that no life survives the grave. Later he defended a "neutral monism" (neither mind nor matter at bottom), not yet in our corpus.
Our texts do not deal with free will. A Free Man's Worship speaks of a freedom of thought before a universe that crushes us, not of a thesis about determinism.
In 1948 he tells good from bad "by my feelings", as one tells blue from yellow, and rejects any "absolute" value. In 1903 he still believed in the objectivity of good; in 1917 he writes that he is less convinced of it.
Freedom of thought and the habit of weighing evidence matter more than any dogma. A useful or comforting belief is not thereby true.
The universe shows no purpose. But man is free to judge, to know and to create: meaning comes from the ideals he chooses to serve, and from the help he gives his companions.
Fear is the source of cruelty and of religion, but humans can overcome it through knowledge: a good world needs knowledge, kindliness and courage. A cautious optimism, grounded in education.
He puts freedom of thought above the social usefulness of beliefs: a state that protects opinions for their usefulness ends up censoring. But he was also a socialist: his political writings are not yet in our corpus.
Right conduct is what will probably produce the greatest good among all possible actions: one must judge by the effects.