Bertrand Russell, Feminism, and Women Philosophers in his Circle (History of Analytic Philosophy)

This book examines Bertrand Russell’s complicated relationships to the women around him, and to feminism more generally. The essays in this volume offer scholarly reassessments of these relationships and their import for the history of feminism and of analytic philosophy. Russell is a founder of analytic philosophy. He has also been called a feminist due to his public, decades-long advocacy for women’s rights and equality of the sexes. But his private behavior towards wives and sexual partners, and his apparently dismissive (occasionally public) responses to some women philosophers, raises the question of what sort of feminist (or chauvinist) Russell actually was. Focusing on women in Russell’s circle of acquaintance, including feminist activists and his philosophical interlocutors, this book casts new light on a timeless thinker’s feminism and the women who played critical roles in the making of analytic philosophy. Series Editor’s Foreword Contents Notes on Contributors List of Figures Editors’ Introduction References A Moral and Intellectual Evaluation of Russell’s Romantic/Sexual Practices 1 Lack of Genuine Consent to Sexual Objectification 1.1 Helen Dudley 1.2 Vivien Eliot 1.3 The Virtue of Restraint 2 Russell’s Moral Philosophy 3 Normative Ethics: A Utilitarian Analysis 4 Metaethics: An Expressivist Analysis References Bertrand and Dora Russell on Sex, Marriage and the Rule of Fathers 1 Introduction 2 Marriage and Morals: Content and Background 3 Four Key Topics Considered 3.1 Instinct: What’s Natural? 3.2 Sexual Freedom 3.3 Marriage 3.4 The Role of Fathers 4 Clash of Cultures: Aristocratic Values versus a New Morality? 5 Tensions Unresolved in Russell’s Views on Sex and Marriage 5.1 Instincts: What’s Natural Revisited 5.2 (Gendered) Sexual Freedom 5.3 Marriage Without Morals? 5.4 The Role of Fathers (or the Rule of Fathers?) 6 Conclusions References Sex, Suffrage, and Marriage: Russell and Feminism 1 Introduction 2 Woodhull and Goldman 3 Sex, Suffrage, and Marriage 3.1 Sex 3.2 Suffrage 3.3 Marriage 4 Russell’s Engagement with Feminist Ideas 4.1 Russell on Sex 4.2 Russell on Suffrage 4.3 Russell on Marriage 4.4 Russell, Woodhull, and Goldman 5 Conclusion References Alice Ambrose and Women’s Work in the Foundations Debate at the University of Cambridge, 1932–1937 1 Women’s Work in the Foundations Debate at Cambridge 1.1 Crisis in the Foundations of Mathematics 1.2 Wittgenstein, the Law of the Excluded Middle and What Counts in Mathematics 2 “Finitism and ‘The Limits of Empiricism’”: Ambrose, Bertrand Russell and What Counts in Mathematics 2.1 The Nature of the Question “Are There Three Consecutive 7’s in the Expansion of π?” 2.2 Giving a Rule a Use: Nonsense in Context 3 Conclusion: Elite Capture, Women’s Ingenuity, and the Framing of Analytic Philosophy References Alice Ambrose and Margaret MacDonald: Two Women Who Challenged Bertrand Russell on Ordinary Language 1 Introduction 2 Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Orthodox View 3 Philosophy and Ordinary Language: Recovering Other Approaches 3.1 Alice Ambrose 3.2 Margaret MacDonald 4 Conclusions References Susan Stebbing and Russell’s Logical Atomism 1 Introduction 2 Russell’s Logical Atomism, Briefly 3 Stebbing’s Objection to the DER 4 The Doctrine of I/E Relations 5 Conclusion References Grandmothers and Founding Mothers of Analytic Philosophy: Constance Jones, Bertrand Russell, and Susan Stebbing on Complete and Incomplete Symbols 1 Introduction: Grandmothers, Grandfathers, and Founding Mothers and Fathers of Analytic Philosophy 2 Constance Jones: Life and Works 3 Constance Jones’s Early Works: Sense and Reference, the Form of the Proposition, Anti-Psychologism 4 Russell and Moore: From The New Philosophy to Logical Atomism 5 The 1910–11 Russell-Jones Debate 6 Stebbing’s Improvements on Russell: Jones’s Hidden Influence? References Dorothy Wrinch and the Man of the Century “I like her very much—she has very good brains.”: Dorothy Wrinch’s Influence on Bertrand Russell 1 A Mutually Beneficial Student-Teacher Relationship 2 Wrinch’s Russellian Works Cited by Russell 2.1 The Retreat from Parenthood 2.2 “On the Nature of Memory” 3 Wrinch’s Russellian Works Not Cited by Russell 3.1 “On the Nature of Judgment” 3.2 Four Logical Works 4 Conclusion References Patricia Russell and Her Influence on Bertrand Russell Author Index Subject Index