BERTRAND RUSSELL: AN INTELLECTUAL BIOGRAPHY, 1872-1914 (ENGLAND)

Bertrand Russell was the most celebrated English philosopher of this century. His renown stemmed from two distinct sources: his technical philosophical work on logic and the philosophy of mathematics, embodied most famously in The Principles of Mathematics and Principia Mathematica, and his public campaigns, waged most notably in opposition to the First World War, the Vietnamese War, and the proliferation of nuclear weapons. Russell was thus a technical philosopher as well as a social activist, a bold intellectual as well as a public adventurer, a man who pursued two long and tempestuous odysseys.; But were there in fact two separate journeys, two unrelated lives, two Russells? This dissertation is an attempt to unite Russell's two careers, to offfer, in a critical account of roughly the first half of his life, an appraisal which examines Russell as a whole and, in the process, joins the two Russells.; The first chapter discusses Russell's family background, childhood, and adolescence and suggests that his membership in one of the oldest, proudest, and most liberal families of the English aristocracy and his ascetic, deeply religious education permanently shaped Russell's moral and political values.; The second chapter treats Russell's undergraduate career at Cambridge, focussing on the many friendships he made there and his growing interest in philosophy. Chapter three details Russell's decision to marry and his choice of career. It also discusses his first book, a study of German social democracy.; The fourth chapter places Russell's philosophical education and early philosophical writings in the context of late nineteenth-century British neo-Hegelianism. Chapter five treats his first technical work, An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry, and argues that Russell's conception of the task of philosophy was akin to that of Plato, Hume, and Kant.; Chapter six discusses Russell's early religious crises and emotional development. Chapter seven presents the grounds of his (and of Moore's) rejection of the neo-Hegelian orthodoxy. The eighth chapter outlines the doctrines of the Principles and the Principia. The final chapter discusses Russell's ethical, religious, and political opinions on the eve of the First World War.