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Portraits from Memory and Other Essays Hardcover – Import, 1956

by Bertrand Russell (Author)

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Physical description: 227 pages ; 23 cm. Notes: Previous owner inscription. Subject: Russell, Bertrand (1872-1970). Lawrence, David Herbert (1885-1930). Philosophers - Great Britain - Biography - Correspondence. Philosophers, British - Correspondence, reminiscences. Philosophy - Addresses, essays, lectures. Philosophy, Modern - 20th century. Biography - RUSSELL, Bertrand Arthur William, 3rd Earl Russell - WHITEHEAD, Alfred North - RUSSELL, John, 1st Earl Russell. Genre: text

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Hardcover: 228 pages
Publisher: NY: Simon and Schuster, 1956. 1st ed.; First Edition edition (1956)
Language: English
ASIN: B0000CJHS6
Package Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
Average Customer Review: 3 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,483,248 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #40242 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Contemporary

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Helga Farrill

Guided by Bertrand Russel

July 26, 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

At 80, the philosophies of Bertrand Russel have guided me through my life. Enjoy owning this well worn book to guide me the rest of the way.

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A MARVELOUS (OFTEN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL) SELECTION OF ESSAYS

January 26, 2015

Format: Paperback

Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872-1970) was an influential British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and political activist. In 1950, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, in recognition of his many books such as A History of Western Philosophy,The Problems of Philosophy,The Philosophy of Logical Atomism,The Analysis of Mind,Our Knowledge of the External World,Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits,Mysticism and Logic, etc.

[NOTE: page numbers below refer to the 246-page paperback edition.]

This book contains a delightful collection of essays, beginning with “Six Autobiographical Essays” [including “Why I Took to Philosophy” and “Experiences as a Pacifist in the First World War”], including “Portraits from Memory” about persons such as George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, Joseph Conrad, George Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, D. H. Lawrence, and others. There are also various other essays, such as “How I Write,” etc.

He admits in an essay, “when you count, you count ‘things,’ but ‘things’ have been invented by human beings for their own convenience. This is not obvious on the earth’s surface because… there is a certain degree of apparent stability. But … If you lived on the sun, you would never have formed the idea of ‘things,’ and you would never had thought of counting because there would be nothing to count. In such an environment, Hegel’s philosophy would seem to be common sense, and what we consider common sense would appear as fantastic metaphysical speculation.” (Pg. 40)

In the essay, “Mind and Matter,” he suggests, “a piece of matter is a group of events connected by … the causal laws of physics. A mind is a group of events connected to causal laws, namely, the laws of psychology. An event is not rendered either mental or material by any intrinsic quality, but only by its causal relations. It is perfectly possible for an event to have both the causal relations characteristic of physics and those characteristic of psychology. In that case, the event is both mental and material at once… The supposed problems of the relations of mind and matter arises only through mistakenly treating both as ‘things’ and not as groups of events. With the theory that I have ben suggesting, the whole problem vanishes.” (Pg. 164-165)

In the essay “How I Write,” he admits, “my development has not been by any means rectilinear. There was a time, in the first years of this century, which I had more florid and rhetorical ambitions. This was the time when I wrote ‘A Free Man’s Worship,’ a work of which I do not now think well.” (Pg. 212)

These essays, for anyone who loves Russell’s writing and ideas, are fascinating; this book will be “must reading” for anyone seriously interested in his life and views.

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Luc REYNAERT

An optimist in a crumbling world

April 29, 2011

Format: Paperback

After a short, but important, autobiographical note, Bertrand Russell brushes sharply delineated portraits of notable writers, philosophers and politicians.

Autobiography
The world in which he grew up seemed indestructible as granite. His grandfather, who brought him up, was in Parliament when Napoleon was still Emperor. The downfall came with WW I: empires fell apart and communism conquered a big part of the world.
His visit to Russia in 1920 was a turning point. The country appeared to him one vast prison with cruel fanatical jailers full of contempt for liberty and democracy. The economic power was in the hands of an oligarchic State, a dreadful engine of tyranny.

His credo
In a world of famine, wars, oppressions, tortures and morbid miseries fostered by gloomy creeds, B. Russell remained an outspoken optimist: `I find many men who seem to be in love with misery and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think that hope is irrational. I cannot agree.'
For him, what the world needs is security against extreme disasters (wars), abolition of extreme poverty, growth of tolerance and the greatest possible opportunity for personal initiatives.

Portraits
G.B. Shaw: a controversialist and iconoclast whose own opinions were chaotic.

H.G. Wells: a liberator of thought with imaginations about possible societies.

Joseph Conrad: a novelist about tragedies of loneliness.

G. Santayana: made BR abandon the belief of the objectivity of good and evil.

A.N. Whitehead: the extraordinary perfect teacher.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb: Fabianism was, in a nutshell, worship of the State. They considered marriage as a social institution designed to fit instinct into a legal framework.

J.S. Mill: the champion of liberty against tyrannical morals and unjust power.

D.H. Lawrence: a would-be despot emphasizing sex, for in sex alone he was compelled to admit that he was not the only human being in the universe.

Lord John Russell: an aristocratic reformer, worshipping a goddess called Liberty.

Orwell's 1984: a world as a prelude to universal death.

Descartes: `I think, therefore I am' is a bundle of errors. It means not more than: `Descartes is a series of which the members are thoughts, therefore Descartes is a name.' Matter and Mind are series of events (not things) connected by causal relations.

Linguists: make philosophy trivial and are excusing ignorance of mathematics, physics and neurology.

Fichte and education: The aim of Fichte's educational system was to destroy freedom of the will and produce mental slaves. What he mainly wished to be taught was the superiority of the German nation.

Mankind's most urgent question to be answered: Shall we put an end to the human race or shall mankind renounce war?

This still highly relevant book is a must read for all Bertrand Russell fans and for all those interested in the fate of mankind.

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