Bertrand Russell: 1872-1920 The Spirit of Solitude v. 1 [Paperback]

Ray Monk is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton, and the author of the definitive biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. In this book (there is also a second volume, BERTRAND RUSSELL: 1921-70 THE GHOST OF MADNESS VOL 2), he deals with Russell's life with a philosphical command that other biographers (e.g., Ronald Clark's very good The Life of Bertrand Russell) do not possess.

Monk begins by stating, "There are many things for which I admire Russell greatly - his enormous intelligence, his commitment to philosophical clarity and rigour, his dedication to the causes of social justice and international peace, and so on. But the challenge to those of us who admire Russell is to understand how they can coexist with a sometimes quite chilling coldness to those close to him, and a disturbing capacity for deep and dark hatreds."

Monk's observations on Russell are very deep and pertinent: e.g., "Russell was fond---perhaps over-fond---of presenting his life as a series of epiphanies, many of which, one suspects, were overplayed by him in later life for the sake of lending drama to the facts of his life."

Concerning Russell's early work in mathematical logic, Monk asks, "Would Russell have produced such important original work in logic and philosophy if he had NOT been dead to the world of the senses?" He adds, "Russell's work on mathematics had, in an indirect way, provided an alternative to religious faith."

Monk chronicles in some detail Russell's attitudes toward religion, which---particularly during the time of his relationship with Lady Ottoline Morrell---were once quite positive, and rather fervent. Russell wrote her, "I shall always be hungry for your God and blaspheming him. I could pour forth a flood of worship - the longing for religion is at times almost unbearably strong." "Indeed passion is of God, the unquenchable thirst for heaven - it is the power that drives us on to seek out good. We are all exiles in this nether world, and all passion has something of homesickness."

Monk is at his best when describing Russell's relationship with Wittgenstein, and gives many insightful comments, such as: "Russell was still inclined to look upon Wittgenstein's work as a kind of 'fine tuning' of his own.... And Wittgenstein was not repairing it, as Russell continued to think, but he was demolishing it altogether." Russell's "relationship with Wittgenstein suffered from the very beginning from his insistence on casting Wittgenstein in a role for which he was unsuited.... From this standpoint, Wittgenstein would always remain unintelligible, and it is scarcely any wonder that he felt misunderstood by Russell." "The importance that Russell attached to understanding Wittgenstein's work at this time, and his refusal to take Wittgenstein's brusque dismissal of his own work were, I believe, connected with his desire to preserve his intellectual integrity. Who better than Wittgenstein---for whom the compromises of journalistic writing were unthinkable---to act as his philosophical conscience?"

This is another exceptional biography by Monk, and will be essential reading for anyone interested Russell, Wittgenstein, modern philosophy, or one of the influential figures of the 20th century.