Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London, WC1R 4RL
What is wanted is not the will-to-believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite. ~ Bertrand Russell
In 1922 Bertrand Russell delivered his Conway Memorial Lecture, “Free Thought and Official Propaganda
organization in the world and the only remaining ethical society in the United Kingdom. Continue reading The Will to Doubt: Summary of Bertrand Russell’s “Free Thought and Official Propaganda”
In, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 1872-1914
Readers of this blog know that Bertrand Russell is one of my intellectual heroes. I believe that Russell was the greatest philosopher in the twentieth century and quite possibly the greatest philosopher of the entire Western intellectual tradition. Continue reading Bertrand Russell: The Value of Philosophy
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. ~ Bertrand Russell Continue reading Bertrand Russell on Fearing Thought
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (1872 – 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, atheist, and social critic. He is, along with his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the founders of analytic philosophy and widely held to be one of the 20th century’s most important logicians. He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics in logic. His writings were voluminous and covered a vast range of topics including politics, ethics, and religion. Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 “in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought.” Russell is thought by many to be the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. Continue reading Summary of Bertrand Russell’s, “A Free Man’s Worship”