Bertrand Russell · Mathematics

The Public Philosopher: What a Logician Owes the World

Russell’s life beyond logic - the ethics of belief that grows from his commitment to evidence, his defiant humanism in the face of a purposeless universe, his pacifism and imprisonment, and the Nobel Prize that crowned a life of championing reason and freedom.

What you'll be able to recall

You learned that Russell extended his rigour about evidence into an ethics of belief (‘it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true’), and that he lived it out through pacifism, imprisonment, and lifelong activism. Explain how his logic and his public co…

Leads to David Hume.

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