Open Culture - Three Passions of Bertrand Russell (and a Collection of Free Texts)

Bertrand Russell is not an easy read most times, but he is a rewarding read. Open Culture offered up a brief introduction to a documentary on Russell from 2005 for Ontario public television, AND they provide links to a whole lot of papers and books by Russell for your reading "pleasure."

Enjoy!

As a special bonus, I have included Russell talking about mysticism (at the bottom) - his argument is the same in some ways as that made by Ken Wilber in The Marriage of Sense and Soul: Integrating Science and Religion.

For mysticism to be taken seriously by science, it must be subjected to the scientific method: create a hypothesis (meditation leads to nondual experience), define the terms (what kind of meditation and for how long, and what is nonduality), perform the experiment, the compare results with others who have performed the experiment.

Russell does not go into this detail, but he does talk about about holding mysticism up to science.

Three Passions of Bertrand Russell (and a Collection of Free Texts)

January 31st, 2012

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life,” wrote Bertrand Russell in the prologue to his autobiography: “the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

This five minute video, a preview of a three-part series produced in 2005 for Ontario public television called “The Three Passions of Bertrand Russell,” features a recording of Russell reading passages from the prologue, entitled “What I Have Lived For.” You can read the original text at the Bertrand Russell Society, an excellent online resource, that also makes available free books by Russell, including:

• An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry (1897)
• The Principles of Mathematics (1903)
• Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)
• Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919)
• Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1919)
• The Analysis of Mind (1921)
• The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

You can also download the first edition of Russell’s landmark 1910-13 collaboration with Alfred North Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, as well as many of Russell’s essays, including:

• “A Free Man’s Worship” (1903)
• “On Denoting” (1905)
• “The Elements of Ethics” (1910)
• “The Ethics of War” (1915)
• “On Propositions” (1919)
• “Theory of Knowledge” (1926)
• “Why I am Not a Christian” (1927)

To explore the full list of available resources, and to learn how you can support the society’s activities, visit the Bertrand Russell Society website.

Also don’t miss some great Russell material in our own archives, including all six of his 1948 BBC Reith Lectures, a clip from a Canadian television interview featuring his views on God, and his eloquent 1959 message to the future.

Bertrand Russell on Mysticism