Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude 1872-1921 - Softcover

Monk, Ray

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1501153749 ISBN 13: 9781501153747

Publisher: Free Press, 2016

Synopsis

Details the life of the acclaimed philosopher and author of Principia Mathematica, in particular his inner conflict between rigorous principle and romantic desire and his relationships with his contemporaries. 15,000 first printing.

About this title

Review:

Volume I of Ray Monk's life of Bertrand Russell is a penetrating and highly critical portrait of one of this century's most influential intellectual figures. Monk's talents as a writer and his knowledge of philosophy produce clear and lucid prose that is sophisticated in its understanding, yet doesn't shy away from the dishy details that make the book compelling. This initial volume takes us through the first fifty years of Russell's private, public, and intellectual life. We follow Russell through his boyhood and schooling, his two marriages and countless love affairs, his friendships with eminent intellectuals such as Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot (plus an affair with Eliot's wife Vivien), and the members of the Bloomsbury Group, up to the birth of Russell's son in 1921. The inner Russell is tumultuous, fighting off fears of madness, and full of insatiable longings. We also see Russell's public life: his outspoken commitment to pacifism which ultimately led to his imprisonment, as well as his early advocacy and later disillusionment with socialism. Ray Monk is particularly adept at explicating Russell's philosophy: his desire to bring an end to interminable philosophical debates by developing new techniques for the logical analysis of philosophical problems. In Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius, Monk demonstrated that cracking good stories exist in the arcana of academic philosophy and in the lives of philosophers. The vastness of Russell's life and the breadth of his interests, in addition to the brilliance of his mind, makes Monk's story all the more captivating.

About the Author:

Ray Monk lectures in philosophy at the University of Southampton, UK.

About this edition

• Publisher: Free Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1501153749
• ISBN 13: 9781501153747
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 752