Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was arguably the greatest philosopher of the 20th century and the greatest logician since Aristotle. Analytic philosophy, the dominant philosophy of the twentieth century, owes its existence more to Russell than to any other philosopher. The system of logic developed by Russell and A. N. Whitehead, based on earlier work by Dedekind, Cantor, Frege, and Peano, broke logic out of its Aristotelian straitjacket. He was also one of the century's leading public intellectuals and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he championed humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." Russell was involved, often passionately, in numerous social and political controversies of his time. For example, he supported suffragists, free thought in religion and morals, and world government; he opposed World War I and the Vietnam War, nationalism, and political persecution. He was jailed in 1918 for anti-war views and in 1961 for his anti-nuclear weapons stance. He was married 4 times and had 3 children. With Dora Russell, he founded the experimental Beacon Hill School. He knew or worked with many of the most prominent figures in late 19th and 20th-century philosophy, mathematics, science, literature, and politics. Active as a political and social critic until his end, Russell died in 1970 at the age of 97.