Bertrand Russell as A “Public Intellectual”

russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 37 (winter 2017–18): 348–60 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036–01631; online 1913–8032 c:\users\ken\documents\type3702\red\rj 3702 064 red.docx 2018-01-25 6:31 AM oeviews BERTRAND RUSSELL AS A “PUBLIC INTELLECTUAL” Stefan Andersson stefankarlandersson@live.com Tim Madigan and Peter Stone, eds. Bertrand Russell: Public Intellectual. Rochester, ny: Tiger Bark P., 2016. Pp. 241. us$20.95. isbn-13: 978-09976305 -0-3. t is unusual for me to review a book consisting mainly of essays by authors I know and have met once a year—more or less—for the last thirty years. This makes me positively inclined even before reading anything. This collection has two competent Russell fans and scholars as editors: Tim Madigan, associate professor of philosophy at St. John Fisher College in Rochester, New York, and president of the Bertrand Russell Society, who is the author of three essays in this collection: “Six Degrees of Bertrand Russell ”,1 “Russell and Dewey on Education: Similarities and Differences” and “Russell in Popular Culture”; and Peter Stone, Ussher assistant professor of political science at Trinity College Dublin, who serves on the brs board, founded two of its local chapters, was recently its vice-president, and also is the author of three essays: “Introduction: Who Was Bertrand Russell?”, “Russell the Political Activist” and “The Logic of Storytelling and the Storytelling of Logic” (on Logicomix). To begin with, we need some idea of the meaning of the term “public intellectual ”, which sounds pretty clear but has no clear Swedish or German equivalents, and that’s not because we don’t have intellectuals in Sweden or Germany, but because the subset public intellectuals has no clear definition and therefore lacks unambiguous examples as members. Russell’s Swedish disciple Ingemar Hedenius,2 Professor in Practical Philosophy at Uppsala 1947–73, became a well-known intellectual person, when he attacked Swedish theology from a more or less Russellian view in Tro och Vetande [Faith and Knowledge], first published in 1949. The debate went on for years and divided the Swedish general population into two groups, much 1 Reprinted from Russell 30 (2010): 63–7. 2 See my “Russell’s Influence on Ingemar Hidenius” (2005). f= Reviews 349 c:\users\ken\documents\type3702\red\rj 3702 064 red.docx 2018-01-25 6:31 AM as the American certified public intellectual Noam Chomsky has his admirers as well as critics. A public intellectual does not necessarily have to be an academic , but usually he is (there are very few female public intellectuals, at least in Sweden). Russell, Hedenius and Chomsky are to me clear examples of public intellectuals , but what did the editors have in mind when they put together a collection of essays about Russell as a public intellectual and how did this social role differ and overlap with other social roles that Russell took: academic, philosopher , political philosopher, political activist, etc? We don’t know because the editors have not supplied an introduction where one would expect these questions to be introduced and discussed. However, taken together the essays provide a good picture of different aspects of Russell as a public intellectual. The second-best way to find out what the essays collected have as a common denominator is to look at the titles. There are fourteen essays, but only the first, brs award-winner Michael Ruse’s foreword, “Bertrand Russell as Public Intellectual: a Personal Reflection”, and David Blitz’s “A Public Intellectual on War and Peace” contain the expression “public intellectual” in the title. However, Ruse does not discuss the meaning of “public intellectual”, and nor does Blitz. They seem to assume it is well known, which it isn’t. The only essay that actually is about Russell as a public intellectual and discusses its varieties is John Lenz’s “How Bertrand Russell Became a New Kind of Intellectual during World War i”. Lenz is associate professor at the department of classics at Drew University, a long-time member of the brs, has served as board chair, and was co-chair of the fourth annual Harvard...

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