Historic Humanist Series

Russell was an English logician who founded analytic philosophy. After a stint of mathematics at Cambridge in the 1890s, Russell turned in earnest to the study of logic. Heavily influenced by Bradley's teachings at Cambridge, Russell developed, in response to his teachings, a new idea called monadism. His first book was An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (1897). Some of his other works of his early period include The Principles of Mathematics (1903), and A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (1900). Soon he discovered Peano's symbolic logic, and his career took a new direction. He wrote Principia Mathematica (1910-1913) with Whitehead, in an attempt to prove that the whole of mathematics is derivable from logical principles.

Together with Albert Einstein, he released the Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955, calling for the curtailment of nuclear weapons. In 1957, he was a prime organizer of the first Pugwash Conference, which brought together scientists concerned about the proliferation of nuclear weapons. He became the founding president of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1958 and was once again imprisoned, this time in connection with anti-nuclear protests, in 1961. Upon appeal, his two-month prison sentence was reduced to one week in the prison hospital. He remained a prominent public figure until his death nine years later at the age of 97.

--Wayne Wilson