Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)
In the classics that are often read, there are actually many unknown details.
Albert Einstein once said that the History of Western Philosophy is a book that transcends factions and conflicts of opinion and is best suited for teaching. Why did Einstein say this? The book's subtitle (and its connection to political and social conditions from antiquity to modern times) may be overlooked by many, but it seems to sum up the characteristics of this classic philosophical history.
How does a philosopher represent the philosopher in his mind? "Sometimes I even record certain details that are not important in themselves, as long as I think they are enough to illustrate a person's or his time."
One of the most well-known and influential philosophers of the contemporary West
One of the most well-known Western philosophers for Chinese readers
Dr. Sun Yat-sen once commented on Russell as a time
"The only Briton who knows China"
The desire for love,
The pursuit of knowledge,
Unquenchable compassion for human suffering,
These three pure but incomparably intense passions have governed my life.
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a twentieth-century British philosopher, mathematical logician, historian, atheist or agnostic, and a prominent Scholar and Pacifist Activist in the West of the last century. Russell is also credited with founding analytic philosophy with Frege, Wittgenstein, and Whitehead. His Principles of Mathematics, co-authored with Whitehead, had a great influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, and analytic philosophy. In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his "diverse and important work, the ongoing pursuit of humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought." His representative works include "The Road to Happiness", "History of Western Philosophy", "Mathematical Principles", "Analysis of Things" and so on.
Russell's purpose has always been to justify accepted beliefs, regardless of which field of mathematics, natural science, social science, or common sense they belong to. His approach is always to proceed from solid, reliable, unquestionable propositions, and on this basis, reconstruct the edifice of knowledge with the least amount of assumptions.
——Zhang Jinyan (translator of "Human Knowledge")
Russell's 20 classic good books
1. "Russell on Happiness"
Away from pain and melancholy, the path to happiness is not difficult
Nobel prize winner in literature and philosopher Russell
A recipe for the reader's pursuit of happiness
Anyone can become happy with proper effort
Translation by the famous literary translator Fu Leishengnian
Published in 1930 by the philosopher Russell, who criticized traditional beliefs, Russell neither explored profound philosophies nor quoted them, but summed up some reasonable opinions confirmed by his own experience and observations and made a formula for the reader, hoping that countless men and women who experienced the pain of melancholy and did not drown in melancholy would find their cases and escapes here, and would be able to become happy with appropriate efforts.
Details Link: What Makes People Unhappy | Russell on Happiness
Identify the QR code one-click purchase ☟
2. A History of Western Philosophy: and its connection to political and social conditions from antiquity to modern times
The greatest thinkers of the twentieth century lead you into the temple of Western philosophy, a book to read about Western philosophy
Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy is a precious book... In such a boring and cruel generation, it is fortunate to have such a smart, upright, brave and humorous person. This is a book that transcends factions and conflicts of opinion and is best suited for teaching.
—Albert Einstein
Philosophy, as far as I understand the word, is something that lies somewhere between theology and science.
All exact knowledge, as I argue, belongs to science; all dogmas that involve something beyond exact knowledge belong to theology. But between theology and science there is a no-man's land that is attacked by both sides; this no man's land is philosophy.
This book is a work compiled by the British philosopher Russell based on his lectures in the United States, and it is also one of Russell's important masterpieces. The book is also one of the most pirated books.
3. "Human Knowledge": the most systematic exposition of Russell's later philosophical thought, the final summary of Russell's philosophical insights, and Russell's last specialized philosophical work
"Since people's contact with the world is short, and observing things is inevitably accompanied by personal prejudices and limitations, how can people gain their full knowledge?
Is this belief in believing in our knowledge partly an illusion? If not, then what else do we have to know besides relying on our senses? ”
This is one of Russell's most important philosophical works and a milestone in the history of philosophy.
- Wood (Russell biographer)
——Zhang Jinyan (translator)
The main purpose of this book is to examine the relationship between individual experience and scientific knowledge as a whole.
4. "Russell's Selected Essays": the most wonderful self-selected collection that best reflects Russell's style
The best stepping stone to learning about Russell and studying his books
There is servility in the real world, so when we make judgments about the real world, we must remove servility from our thoughts.
Poverty is only a symptom, and slavery is the root of the disease.
In this world, a people must have courage if they are to survive.
Although the intensity and breadth of curiosity gradually diminishes as people reach adulthood, its quality can improve over a long period of time.
The book is selected from works such as Mysticism and Logic, Why Humans Fight, and Freedom Road, which best reflect his style.
5. "Outline of Philosophy": Russell's only general philosophical work, which comprehensively shows the overall face of Russell's philosophy
"Philosophy originated from an unusually persistent pursuit of true knowledge."
Russell is writing a book on objective psychology.
--John S. Miller B. Watson (Behaviorist psychologist)
Love, beauty, knowledge, the joy of life: no matter how wide our horizons are, we will love them. If philosophy can help us feel the value of these things, it plays a role in the collective work of humanity in bringing light to the dark world.
--Russell
A central theme of the book is the development of a behaviorist definition of knowledge that can be used to deal with different problems in order to examine its limitations.
6. Why I'm Not a Christian: Russell's most famous and straightforward book on religion
Russell believed that religious beliefs were simple beliefs subject to probabilistic, scientific, logical, and historical scrutiny, which might be found to be unqualified.
—Simon Blackburn
Bertrand Russell's book on religion is worth publishing at any time.
—Paul Edwards
I would like to see a world in which the purpose of education is freedom of thought, not in imprisoning the minds of young people in the hard armor of dogma in order to protect them for life from the arrows of just evidence. The world needs a frank mind and an open mind, and it is possible to obtain such a mind and thoughts without rigid institutions, whether new or old.
The good world needs knowledge, mercy and bravery; it does not require remorse and nostalgia for the past, or the insufficiency of free wisdom with the words of ignorant people long ago. It requires a vision of the future, not an endless review of the past that has vanished.
This is a collection of essays on religion and related issues, rich in content and insightful in thought.
7. "The Development of My Philosophy": Russell's summary of his own philosophical thought, first-hand material for the study of Russell's philosophical thought
Bertrand Russell was a philosopher without a philosophical system. In other words, he was a philosopher who belonged to various schools of philosophy... I believe that there is a basic purpose behind Russell's work, which is to seek the truth with a religious zeal, to seek truth beyond the world, a truth that is independent of the human heart, even independent of human existence.
--Alan Ude
I used to think that feelings and thoughts based on feelings were a prison in which we could be liberated from thoughts that were free of feelings. Now I don't think so, I think that feelings and the thoughts built on top of sensations are windows, not prisons.
We can't do it without impartiality, but we can go some distance. It is the supreme duty of the philosopher to show the way to this goal.
This book is a book written by Russell in 1959, and as the name suggests, this book is a review of Russell's own philosophical thought, which has its own special value.
8. "Philosophical Problems": an introduction to the popularity of philosophy, a masterpiece of Russell's life
Russell's Philosophical Questions has been a must-read for generations of philosophy students. In this text, the author does not deal with all philosophical questions, but only those on which he thinks he can be sure and accomplished, and he deals primarily with the theory of knowledge, that is, the examination of the branches of philosophy that one can say to know or have reason to believe. On this basis, he came to certain remarkable conclusions about the ultimate category of all things.
--John Skorowski (UK)
Philosophy, like other disciplines, aims first and foremost at acquiring knowledge. Philosophy seeks knowledge that can provide a unified system of science, and knowledge derived from the basis of criticism of our prejudices, prejudices, and beliefs.
The value of philosophy can be found only in the bread of the soul; only those who do not ignore the food of the soul believe that the study of philosophy is not a waste of time.
This book is a more comprehensive exposition of his arguments on many philosophical questions and can represent a general summary of his early philosophical thought.
9. The Analysis of the Heart: The most important transformation of Russell's philosophical thought was a new starting point for his subsequent philosophical research
Russell's idea of neutral monism was first systematically expressed in this book.
Philosophically, he was the founder of analytic philosophy, philosophy of language, and new realism.
—— Jia Kechun (translator)
Believing in something is desired by people often produces a tendency to evoke just the desire to be believed. It is this fact that makes the effect of "consciousness" on desire so complicated.
However, the desire for faith, unlike the desire for facts, is extremely powerful in both the individual and social aspects. According to the form of desired belief, it is called vanity, optimism, or religion.
In this book, Russell proposes neutral monism, which not only represents Russell's departure from his previous basic philosophical views, but also a new starting point for all his subsequent philosophical research, which has a very important place in the development of Russell's philosophy.
10. "The Analysis of Matter": the product of Russell's thirty years of thinking, an exploration of the philosophical problems of physics
In terms of the pursuit of knowledge, Russell is one of the few contemporary encyclopedic scholars.
Science believes that when we "see the sun," there is a process that begins with the sun, crosses the space between the sun and the eye, changes its properties when it reaches the eye, changes its properties again on the optic nerve and brain, and finally produces what we call "seeing the sun."
Thus, our knowledge of the sun is inferential; our immediate knowledge is of an event, and in a sense the event is "in us."
Rather than presenting the reader with the grand axiomatization of physics, this book provides a preliminary analysis of the concepts and problems that are crucial to understanding physics from a philosophical perspective.
11. Introduction to mathematical philosophy: a popular reading of Russell's tome Principia Mathematica, "A Brief Explanation of Mathematical Philosophy"
This is a book that needs to be studied carefully, not just read.
—John G. Slater
In this book, Russell presents the scientific results identified in the study of mathematical principles in his clear and clear brushwork, including in particular in mathematical logic. He stated the main results of mathematical logic in a form that required neither mathematical knowledge nor the ability to apply mathematical notation.
12. The Inquiry of Meaning and Truth: A work on the problem of epistemology, a classic in the history of analytic philosophy
An important work by Russell in his later years, which reflects the apparent continuity between Russell's philosophy and modern philosophy, shows how analytic philosophy has gradually grown from traditional philosophy.
In its simplest form, the process of confirmation occurs when I first anticipate an event and then perceive it.
Science is largely made up of methods of inventing concepts that have a higher degree of precision than concepts in everyday life.
This book is a treatise on epistemology, answering the question of how to obtain legitimate or non-subjective scientific knowledge from first-person perceptual experience.
13. Logic and Knowledge: "Ten treatises embody the achievements of a great philosopher of our time over a period of fifty consecutive years. (Robert Charles Marsh)
Some things, such as the interior of the Earth or the other side of the moon, have never been experienced by anyone, but people believe in their existence.
It seems to me that the work of philosophy is essentially logical analysis, followed by logical synthesis.
Science is the truth in a broad sense, and science can obtain the necessary public works through analysis.
The book consists of ten russell articles published between 1901 and 1950: (1) relational logic; (2) argumentation; (3) mathematical logic based on type theory; (4) relation between universal and heterogeneous; (5) the nature of affinity; (6) the philosophy of logical atomism; (7) propositions: what propositions are and how propositions produce meaning; (8) logical atomism; (9) time series; and (10) logical positivism.
14. "A Critical Interpretation of Leibniz's Philosophy": It is still recognized by Western philosophical circles as the authoritative work on Leibniz, and Russell's second published work
Without an understanding of Russell's Critical Interpretation of Leibniz's Philosophy, it is impossible to understand Russell, at least not historically and comprehensively.
—— Duan Dezhi (translator)
Leibniz believed that happiness was a feeling of completeness, the kind of thing that Locke called uneasiness, which was essential and indispensable to the happiness of creation, and that happiness was by no means a complete possession.
The idea that a proposition acquires its truth by being believed is something I will criticize in my discussion of God's relationship with eternal truth.
Leibniz's logic is the subject of the book, and around this subject Russell discusses many important philosophical questions concretely and profoundly, and proposes and expounds many valuable ideas.
15. "The Theory of Power": a classic work that analyzes the philosophy of power and influences the whole world
There are all kinds of differences between man and other animals, there are differences in intelligence, there are differences in feelings. One of the main differences in the emotional aspect is that some of the desires of man, unlike those of animals, are endless and cannot be fully satisfied.
Imaginary victories are endless. If these victories are considered possible, efforts will be made to achieve them. Imagination is a force that drives people to continue to struggle after their basic needs have been met.
Among man's various infinite desires, the main ones are the desire for power and honor.
This book discusses both the positive and negative effects of power. By exploring the basis of power desire, answering why people pursue power; by analyzing the manifestations of power, expounding the actual basis and composition of power; and exploring the possible ways to regulate power by studying the relationship between power and social environment and ethics and morality.
16. Authority and the Individual: "Too little freedom leads to stagnation, too much leads to chaos"
As our turbulent century draws to a close, its powerful and detailed exposition of the inevitable tension between the demands of authority and the need for freedom increases its power to move people's hearts. In terms of its ambition, in terms of the wisdom of its analysis, and in terms of the heuristics of its conclusions, Authority and the Individual remains eloquent and convincing to us.
—Kirk Willis
A sound and progressive society requires both centralized control and the initiative of individuals and groups: without control, there will be anarchy; without motivation, there will be stagnation.
Humans are different from other animals in many ways. One of them is that he is happy to engage in things that are not necessarily pleasant in themselves, because they are the means to achieve the ends he wants to achieve.
For society to progress, it needs extraordinary individuals whose actions, while beneficial, are not the kind that should be generalized... This problem, like all our concerns, is a question of balance; too little freedom leads to stagnation, and too much leads to chaos.
The main purpose of government, I think, should be three: security, justice and protection. These are all things that are essential to human well-being and something that only governments can do.
The book raises the question: "How can we combine the degree of individual initiative necessary for progress with the degree of cohesion necessary for survival?" ”
17. Religion and Science: "And what science cannot discover, it is impossible for mankind to know"
A book about traditional science challenging religion
While it is true that science cannot solve the problem of values, that is because they cannot be solved by reason at all, and they do not fall within the scope of truth and falsity. Any knowledge available must be acquired by the scientific method; and what science cannot discover, man cannot know.
We have seen that in the period since Copernicus, whenever science and theology diverged, science always won. We also see that in areas where there is practical controversy, such as witchcraft and medicine, science always advocates the reduction of suffering, while theology contributes to the innate barbarism of man. Needless to say, the popularity of a scientific worldview, as opposed to the theological worldview, has so far been conducive to happiness.
This book briefly describes some of the more significant conflicts between theologians and scientists over the past four hundred years, and attempts to judge the impact of modern science on modern theology.
18. Russell's Autobiography: What should a person live for?
The desire for love, the quest for knowledge, and the irrepressible compassion for human suffering have dominated my life with these three pure but incomparably strong passions.
Love and knowledge lead me to heaven as best they can, but compassion always brings me back to earth.
That's my life, and I think it's worth living. I'd love to live again if I get the chance.
This book is a portrait of Russell's colorful life. He has always interacted with British and American politicians and academics, and has experienced many important events in the 20th century, which makes Russell's life experience a rich historical volume.
19. "The Wisdom of the West": Russell's masterpiece, an illustrated history of Western philosophy.
As the author Bertrand Russell puts it, this book is a completely new work that differs from his famous book, The History of Western Philosophy, and it came about for two reasons:
First, to provide the reader with a concise and comprehensive work on the history of philosophy;
Second, return respectfully to the history of philosophy and look back at the intellectual favors bestowed upon us by the great thinkers of the past, so as to grasp today's philosophical problems.
20. "Russell Collected Works" (a total of 15 volumes): the largest and most academic collection of Russell's works in China, and an essential collection of libraries
This collection of essays includes russell's works published by the Commercial Press for more than 40 years, mainly including his monographs on philosophy, political science, religion and other aspects, including 12 academic works, 1 lecture collection and 1 autobiography. It is currently the largest and most scholarly collection of Russell's works in China.
📖
Friends who need to purchase the entire book list can leave your needs in the background and our staff will contact you. Enjoy choosing books and buying books at special offers!