Nightwaves on Bertrand Russell

Radio 3's Nightwaves is this week hosting a series of discussions on the theme of "Sacred Monsters". It is, in essence, an exercise in debunking the various myths and hagiographies that surround various iconic figures. Last night Bertrand Russell got the treatment in a discussion between AC Grayling and Barry Smith, chaired by Ann McElvoy.

I'm wondering if next week there might be an opportunity to debunk the debunkers because last night's discussion was, to put it charitably, lacklustre. It amounted to this: Russell's work on philosophical logic is still of value but his social commentary was in large part misconceived.

This is hardly news. Wittgenstein once remarked that everything Russell wrote on the former should be required reading and everything he wrote on the latter should be banned. Now, given that Wittgenstein died more than 50 years ago we can safely say that the central thesis of last night was not original in any startling sense. Russell's work on philosophical logic, his attempt to draw certainty from logic via its reduction to mathematical axioms, is indeed of value in that it allowed later philosophers to demonstrate that such a reduction is not possible. Which is not to denigrate Russell since to be both bold and wrong is a species -perhaps the most important species -of philosophical innovation.

Roger Scruton once described Russell as being an aristocrat, though not a gentleman. And it is indeed quite possible to read his writings on morals, marriage etc as being an attempted vindication of his own relentless selfishness -he loved humanity, but not people. I doubt that Grayling would concur, since for him Russell was a kind of architect of a more "tolerant" society. He was no such thing of course since the society he helped author approves of much yet is tolerant of very little.