Bertrand Russell: His Life And Work

Punchy question to start or quote (if using quote, don’t use a popular one, go for an obscure but either highly relevant or highly controversial quote – perhaps even one he did a backflip on later?)

Earl Bertrand Russell was a mathematician, philosopher, social activist and Nobel Laureate, and influential presence in the philosophy of the 20th century (Hamlyn, 1990). Developing the work of Frege he is seen as a founder of Analytical Philosophy which is the dominant philosophical tradition today (Zalta, Nodelman, Allen, & Perry, 2010). He proposed the theory of types and the theory of descriptions and tackled problems relating to truth, meaning and belief (Guha, 2004).

Russell was born in 1872 into a liberal Victorian aristocracy, his Grandfather had been Prime Minister and John Stuart Mill, whose work would later influence his faith, a family friend. Early in life he was to lose his parents and Grandfather and was brought up by his protective and religious Grandmother to a privileged but lonely childhood (Ironside, 2006). Like Hume, he was an atomist and critical of absolute idealists such as Bradley. Inspired by Logician Frege, Russell worked in a ten-year collaboration at Cambridge where he co-wrote Principia Mathematica which revolutionised the study of foundations of mathematics (Hamlyn, 1990). He struggled with the problems of logic and epistemology raised by Moore and Meinong to perfect his ideal language (Grayling, 2001). His views lead to imprisonment on more than one occasion and the loss of teaching positions both the UK and US. During his 97-year life he produced over 70 books, writing on Logicism, sex and marriage, education, anti-nuclear movement, atheism and quixotic one world government (Grayling, 2001).

From Russell’s work at Cambridge his quest for mathematical certainty extended itself to the theoretical aspects of political and social reform, which he found partnership with his first wife Alys Pearsall Smith (Griffin, 2003).

Bertrand Russell's ideals of pacificism had stemmed from his concept of rationalism, being that there can always be a reasoned solution to avoid conflict. His position of pacifism was firm enough to land him in prison on the onset of the first world war, however as the second world war developed Bertrand Russell's position of pacifism had shifted to a form of utilitarianism, being that in some cases war can be justified when it is the lesser of two evils . This had led him to advocate for pre-emptive nuclear attacks against Russia in order to end communism (Schwerin, 2002).

Like Bertrand Russell, as leaders in the workplace ethical decision making must be made with consideration to not just the shareholders but the greatest number of internal and external stakeholders of business (Gustafson, 2013). This is a form of utilitarianism and can be exhibited in modern day business. Leaders in the workplace must consider the greatest good of the business when hard choices must be made. This brings into question the concept of the bottom-line vs the triple bottom line. A utilitarianist approach would set in place a moral framework to decisions which would favour the triple bottom line being a balance of Profit, People and planet over strictly profit (Bryden & Gezelius, 2017). This is a common approach to business reasoning when weighting costs over benefits, however it poses limitations as in some cases leaders cannot predict the future and therefore run the moral risk of making decisions which unjustly benefit a larger majority of people at the expense of others. Although utilitarianism is a reasoned based approach to decision making, it can pose ethical consequences to managers who oversee individual rights in favour of achieving the greater good (Frederick, 2008). Much like Bertrand Russell who had advocated for pre-emptive nuclear attacks against Russia post world war two, his view as a utilitarianist was that whilst a nuclear monopoly was held it was for the greater good that some people died from the bombs in order to achieve the capitulation of communist ideals in the country (Schwerin, 2002).

It was this utilitarian belief system that led to Russell’s passion for logical decision making, thus his extensive work within analytical philosophy, despite rejecting Logical Positivism on the ground of being logically inconsistent (Russell, 1950). Russell instead focussed his work in Logical Atomism on the assumption that the world consists of logical 'facts' (or 'atoms') that cannot be broken down any further, each of which can be understood independently of other facts (Bostock, 2012). This theory was a catalyst for Russell’s “Theory of descriptions” described in his 1905 book ‘On Denoting’ as the logical form of expressions involving denoting phrases, or ‘definite descriptions’, and the importance of context and background information (Russell, 1905).

Russell was in search of a logically perfect, isomorphic language, seeking epistemological certainty in the world as he did in his work in mathematics (Clack, 2012). Whist mathematics is not a topic that comes immediately to mind when seeking management principals, Russell’s work in language demonstrated the importance of the words that we speak. Managers must be cognizant of the contextual and background factors associated with their everyday conversations and be sensitive to background conditions and contextual factors. This is more important than ever in our current environment where employees are more likely to take offence at what is said, careful language is fundamental to a mangers career (Ely, Meyerson, & Davidson, 2006).

A further challenge ingrained in Russell’s lifelong work was his search to find a less sceptical system than Hume had proposed, within the bounds of empirical philosophy (Spillane, 2007). Whilst Russell dedicated much of his intellectual life focusing on provability, in contrast to Hume’s conclusion that deductive proof is impossible, Russell was not deterred from appreciating Hume’s work (Hay, 1950). This was demonstrated in the latter of his career in his book “ A History of Western Philosophy”, where Russell penned his admiration for Hume, declaring Hume to be one the ‘most important philosophers’, whom represented a dead end to philosophy, bringing empirical philosophy to a logical end (Spillane, 2007).

As Hume discussed the problem with religion thorough his work (Hardin, 2009) labelled posthumously as an agnostic, an atheist, and an anti-theist, (Andre, 1993), Russell’s too was victim of being classified as both atheist and agnostic by scholars, however in Russell’s case, he had declared his agnostic persuasion in his 1950 book, “Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?” (Russell & Haldane, 1950).

When discussing the existence of God amongst atheists (or agnostics), the notion of supporting evidence, and burden of proof are often raised (Flew, 2000). This is important as sound evidence provide the foundation for a reasonable inference, as well as the idea that those who make claims must support them with evidence (Anderson, 2007). “He was a sceptic concerning arguments for the existence of God, he systematically examines and criticises the argument for Gods existence” (Collinson & Plant, 2006). Generally, Atheist’s believe that there is provable evidence for God thus the teapot floating in space analogy emerged, appropriately named “Russell’s Teapot” (Luchte, 1974).

Russell’s argument deduced that we cannot conclusively prove that there is not a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere in outer space; but, given the lack of evidence for such a teapot, its likelihood is so low that the reasonable conclusion should be that it does not exist. Likewise, we cannot conclusively prove that God does not exist; but, given the lack of evidence for God, the reasonable conclusion should be that he does not exist (Garvey, 2010)

Wittgenstein was his student at Cambridge and was very well respected by Russell (Wittgenstein, 1996). However, later as he separated from his mentor, due to changing nature of his mentor's standings, he did once suggest that all Bertrand Russell’s books should be bound in two colours: - Red for mathematical logic, and 'all students of philosophy should read them'. - Blue for ethics and politics, and 'no one should be allowed to read them“(Stone, 2003).

It can be surmised that Russell was prepared to recognise flaws and inadequacies in doctrines he had argued for and was always ready to re-think and re-formulate his ideas. All his work and overall approach relates to concept of Continuous Improvement- move away from systemic-piece meal methods is a message for management of today (Sluga & Stern, 1996).

Russell was an epistemological provocateur. In Education and the Social Order (Russell, 1932) He examined the purposes of an education and the tensions between producing a good individual and a good citizen scrutinizing the motives of the state in providing an education and providing an ideal for reform of education systems. The problem being ‘[t]he cultivation of the mind is no, on the face of it, the same thing as the production of a useful citizen’./ The individual should ‘mirror the world’ but should do so with joy for knowing the world. The joy of knowledge for knowledges sake is not the same for the citizen. Citizens are trained to be persons ‘…who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation’. Russell questioned the influence of politics and economics on education and pondered the subsequent motive: ‘can the fullest individual development be combined with the necessary minimum of social coherence? In the West, the result being to favour a single religion, the male sex, the wealthy, and the State with the aims of education being instruction and training in good conduct (Russell, 1932).

For Russell, education should liberate the child from unthinking obedience parental and religious authorities and that love of knowledge should form the basis of education. Where this is not the case, the being the pupil is under considered and his individuality is subsumed to the responsibilities of the citizen (Russell, 1932). Russell contended that balancing the need for internal harmony in the individual with an external harmony with the wills of others could provide for an education of an inquiring individual as well as a worthwhile citizen. Russell advocated for what we would call lifelong and life-wide learning and the acquisition of useless knowledge, his ode to the peach advocacy of knowing for knowing’s sake:

I have enjoyed peaches and apricots more since I have known that they were first cultivated in China in the early days of Han Dynasty; that Chinese hostages held by the great King Kaniska introduced them to India, whence they spread to Persia, reaching the Roman Empire in the first century of our era … All this makes the fruit taste much sweeter (Russel, 1935).

Today’s manager should realise that what Russell reveals is that he or she is a product of education and training. The educated manager is something that the trained manager is not. A trained manager’s mind is filled with facts, theories, models, policies, processes and procedures and perhaps, ideas of continuous improvement and even ones of entrepreneurship. The trained manager possesses this knowledge and exhibits it visibly with utility to plan, lead, organise and control as manager ought to do. However, the educated manager is much more than this (Jordan, 1960).

The trained manager is well versed in useful knowledge where the educated manager possesses: ‘art or literature, theology or philosophy, or science. These and not facts or theories can be an organic component of a personality—the very stuff of one's being’ (Vivas, 1958). The trained manager should seek to continuously learn and become the educated manager, and this means broadening one’s horizons with the study of ‘useless knowledge’ as useless knowledge is useful. Russell counsels in his essay on how to read and understand history that ‘[t]he State, when it educates you, has the public object of supplying you with useful knowledge’ (Russell, 1957). Extending Russell’s view on the usefulness of a useless knowledge of history:

The study of history should enable the student to observe calmly and dispassionately, to weigh judiciously, to maintain poise—to be, in short, a liberally-educated individual. Students should study history primarily because it is impractical, because it does not promise to add a single devaluated dollar to their income, because they burn with desire to know for knowing's sake. The history student is not learning to make a cigarette with a better filter, not removing the caffeine from coffee because the world's a nervous place, not designing a complex calculating machine, not touching-off a rocket whose destination lies in the misty realm of inter-stellar space (Jordan, 1960).

Despite his prolific writings and influence on philosophers like Wittgenstein, McLendon concludes that since Bertrand accepts Hume’s reasoning for induction and has assimilated techniques of reasoning into his own work, he was not able to move beyond him (McLendon, 1952). There are many insights from Bertrand Russell’s work which are relevant to modern day management practices. His challenging of assumption which is the core principle of lean thinking. How useless knowledge is an asset, which has been highlighted as the benefit of bringing diversity to teams, to provide different perspectives to problems. That when faced with uncomfortable decisions to choose the lesser of two evils, could be equally applied when responsible for a retrenchment programme. Dangerous and ineffective initiatives could be prevented by not submitting to “group think”. To refuse to be a passenger but analyse the facts to argue your position. Bertrand has also shown managers that its ok to change your mind, based on the available information. 

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