BOOKS
469
SYMPOSIUM ON RUSSELL
THE PHILOSOPHY OF BERTRAND RusSELL.
(Volume V in ((The Librar.Y
of Living Philosophers.") Edited by Paul Arthur Schilpp. North–
western University.
$4.00
T
HIS, THE fifth volume in "The Library of Living Philosophers,"
proceeds according to plan. Twenty-one distinguished contributors
have their say about Mr. Russell's philosophy over a wide range of agree–
ment and disagreement, with Mr. Russell replying by and large, and as
might be expected, in kind. There is an autobiographical sketch, some–
what primly called "My Mental Development" and opening with the
flavor of a nineteenth century account: "My mother having died when
I was two years old, and my father when I was three, I was brought up
in the house of my grandfather, Lord John Russell, afterwards Earl Rus–
sell. Of my parents, Lord and Lady Amberley, I was told almost nothing
-so little that I vaguely sensed a dark mystery." The volume is rounded
off with bibliography and index.
The discussions are comprehensive, including fields like ethics and
religion in which he comes close to disclaiming a philosophy and ad–
mitting only opinion. Roughly two-thirds of the articles are devoted,
naturally, to the more
profe~sional
aspects of Mr. Russell's philosophical
writings, which have never constituted casual reading.
If
understanding
is what is wanted, in accordance with the purpose of the series, Mr.
Russell's approval as expressed in his replies may be taken as recommend–
ing the articles by Hans Reichenbach, Morris Weitz, G.
E.
Moore, A. P.
Ushenko, Roderick M. Chisholm as adequate statements of some of his
basic conclusions. Morris Weitz' contribution ought to be mentioned in
particular; it has done Mr. Russell a service in setting forth, sympatheti–
cally, the fundamental unity in his philosophy which the academic wits
have, for the sake of a bad joke, persisted in overlooking. So far as criti–
cism is concerned, the discussion of Russell's philosophy of science by
Ernest Nagel appears to be the most fundamental in the volume-the
most fundamental, at any rate, if theory of knowledge is taken as philo–
sophically crucial. And in an extra-curricular way, G. E. Moore's analysis
of Russell's theory of descriptions is remarkable as a stylistic
tour de
force.
By conversational tricks, by frank explicitness and repetition, it
succeeds in pervading a thoroughly recalcitrant subject-matter with
something like an ingenuous air.
A volume like this, presenting as it does a complete view, raises the
question of Mr. Russell's place in contemporary thought. In a discussion
of his ethics, Justus Buchler calls Russell a good representative of this
century. He may be .in the special sense in which Mr. Buchler regards
him; yet insofar as recent thought has tried to escape egocentricity he
assuredly is not. As Russell indicates in the autobiography, he takes for
granted that theory of knowledge must ask, "How do
I
know what I
