Review: Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude [1872-1921] and Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970

Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude [1872-1921]
Title
Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude [1872-1921]
Author
Ray Monk
Publisher
London: Vintage, 1997
ISBN
0-09-973131-2

Review Copyright © 2005 Garret Wilson — 29 May 2005 6:07pm

Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970
Title
Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970
Author
Ray Monk
Publisher
London: Vintage, 2001
ISBN
0-09-927275-X

Review Copyright © 2005 Garret Wilson — 29 May 2005 6:07pm

In discussing Ray Monk's two volumes of biography of Bertrand Russell, I cannot help but address two distinct referrants: Bertrand Russell himself, and Monk's characterization of him. I will begin briefly with the former. Bertrand Russell was one of the founders, along with Frege (whom he "discovered" and brought from obscurity) and Wittgenstein (Russell's student, later friend, and then quasi-foe) of analytic philosophy. With Russell came symbolic logic, "scientific" philosophy, and a turn in contemporary philosophical studies towards linguistic characterizations.

Russell's life was at once brilliant and tragic or, to put it another way, human. His analysis drove him to a lonely feeling of isolation that manifested itself in an attempt to effect grand solutions to problems of humanity. At the same time, the particulars as it were of the real world were doggedly troublesome and, as Russell might have internally characterized them, petty insignificancies that impeded "real" progress on a larger, meaningful scale. Thus his relations with his wives, his children, and others near him were at times less than noble, the product of a man whose loves had been disillusioned and thereby stripped of meaning.

With Russell's penchant for seeing patterns and connections, then, why did he not see his own repititions of social failures? Why did he not sense, as more of his wives and lovers fell to insanity, that perhaps he was drawn to those with predispositions to mental problems? Why did not he see the problems of his children, the disharmony of his multiple marriages, and the predictable disasters of his relationships as at least sharing some sort of root cause within himself? At one point in his life, he made exactly that realization: "[W]hat a failure I have made of my life, as a husband & as a father. I have tried to think the fault was other people's but the repetition seems to show that it can't be" (The Ghost of Madness, 311). One wonders that Russell was in his late 70s by the time he reached this revelation.

Monk's coverage of Russell's life is comprehensive, taking up two volumes: Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude [1872-1921] and Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970. It is enlightening as to the interactions of philosophers as Russell's ideas developed. I had wondered, for example, what Russell's reaction was to the devastating discovery of Gödel that axiomatic logicist projects such as Russell's and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica must be inherently incomplete. Monk's story makes it implicitly evident that by the time Gödel revealed his first theorem, Russell had already become convinced that logic was less useful though its essentially linguistic character, and he and Wittgenstein had come to see logic as producing only different ways of saying the same thing.

Monk stresses throughout both volumes an underlying Russellian fear of insanity, stemming from his youth and pervading his actions for the rest of his life. While it's true Russell's family did have its share of mental problems and his life (especially through his relationships) was repeatedly touched by insanity, the actual facts produced by Monk don't seem to point to an overriding obsession with the possibility of insanity. It's undoubted that Russell did occasionally ponder such a possibility. It's also clear that Russell would at times examine his dreams and write books (as did his children and others during that era) that were allegories. Monk at times however seems to relentlessly pursue the slightest shadows of allusions in chronicled dreams or writings of Russell and those around him in an attempt to find some sort of underlying, unconscious insight on his subject matter. This tendency is easily compensated for by the reader, however, and it doesn't drastically detract from the validity of Monk's analysis.

An in-depth analysis of Russell's life here is therefore inappropriate; Monk has done an adequate job. Russell's philosophical achievements are undisputed. Monk comprehensively chronicles both Russell's philosophical and social contributions, as well as his private relationships and his internal conflicts. Reading Monk's account will provide enough material for one to begin his or her own evaluation of how Russell fared in those other areas, and whether any conclusions can be influential in the reader's own experiences.

Notes: Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude [1872-1921]

Notes: Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921-1970