Lace Wilson
First Installment
Section 6
What is
better than a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian,
writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate? Well a lot
of things but today I will be discussing Bertrand Russel and his mathematical
ways.
“The whole problem
with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts.”
Bertrand Russell’s
first mathematical book, An Essay of the Foundations of Geometry, was published
in the late late 1890’s. His book and the work that filled it was inspired by
Immanuel Kant. Kant was a German philosopher. Russell later found that his
concept made Albert Einstein’s representation of space and time ultimately
impossible.
Russell believed
that religion could be quite harmful to people. “As a philosopher, if I were
speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe
myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive
argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if
I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think
that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot
prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that
there are not the Homeric gods.”
— Bertrand Russell, Collected Papers, vol. 11, p. 91
Later on, Russell
decided to choose to take over the agnostic label on a BBC radio debate between
himself and Frederick Copleston. Not only was Russell agnostic. He was also a
huge influence on modern philosophy. (How great of transition was that?) Russell
also had an influence on individuals in the philosophy world as well. One that
really stands out would be, Ludwig Wittgenstein. Ludwig was a pupil of Russell
between the years 1911 and 1914. Ludwig Wittgenstein was an Austrian-British
philosopher who also worked with the philosophy if mathematics.
“I wanted certainty
in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that
certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I
discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers wanted me
to accept, were full of fallacies ... I was continually reminded of the fable
about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which
the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and
proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the
tortoise was no more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of
arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could
do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.” –Bertrand Russell
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