Russell: The Great Philosophers

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.)

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.

This tiny book amazes me. Rather than attempt a biography, Monk focuses on one theme of Russell's life: his adventure with mathematics and the drive to reduce all of mathematics to logic, crystallized as a pristine whole of pure beauty -- the ultimate achievement of rational thought. Retracing the inspiration, successes, and ultimate defeat of that program, interpolating through the stages of Russell's own writings, Monk provides us with a glimpse of the integrity of a life committed to taking a major philosophical inquiry to an honest but unwanted and discouraging conclusion. In retracing the path of Russell's mathematical passion, Monk provides brief thumbnails of the major concepts that illuminated the route to today's mathematical logic and its foundational construction: one that in itself demonstrates the impossibility of a purely logical system that resolves all of mathematics as a wonder of deductive reasoning.

Question: How would Ray Monk follow his wildly successful biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein? Answer: He takes on the life of Wittgenstein's teacher, and the most public philosopher of the 20th century, Bertrand Russell.There are a myriad of biographies of Russell in and out of print; even the most ardent Russell admirer could easily admit burnout on this score. Russell himself penned an autobiography that lends itself more to literature than fact. Why should one spend money and time on yet another biography?Two reasons should suffice, I hope. Monk is a thorough biographer, but not an adoring one. Although some others have also been critical, none brings to the subject the background in analytical philosophy that Monk does, and this is an important factor when discussing the life and thought of a philosopher, for both are obviously and subtly interwined in the subject.Secondly, Russell was more than an academic philosopher, he was a public figure who was more well known than his philosophy. His life was lived in the pages of the press and made great fodder for the newshounds. Whether it was his many love affairs (including a disastrous one with poet T.S. Eliot's unstable wife Vivian) or his peace campaign during the first World War that led to his jailing by the English government, Russell always made good copy. Monk takes the reader behind the headlines to the events and forces that shaped the young Russell's life and philosophy. His partnership with Alfred North Whitehead in the co-authorship of Principia Mathematica is expertly handled, as is Russell's later dalliance with the Bloomsbury Group.This is the first of two projected volumes and I can't wait to read Part Two.

Ray Monk makes it clear in this book that he dislikes Russell.As a hitherto ardent Russophile, this ought to have given me cause for concern that I would find problems with this book.I nonetheless recommend it to even those of a similar disposition to myself, it is probably the best biography (of any subject) that I have ever read.It attempts to be more probing and insightful (and thus results in being more contentious) than anything I have ever read concerning Russell's motivations, both conscious and otherwise.For someone who has taken us so far towards appreciating the tragic explanations for their subject's weaknesses, Ray Monk himself perhaps needs to explain why dislike has emerged rather than sysmpathy.Or perhaps answering this question is ultimately a job for this biographer's biographer?