E ditor’s Notes

 

contributors

landon d. c. elkind earned his doctorate from the University of Iowa, where he has been a Visiting Assistant Professor since 2018. Starting September 2020, he will be a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Alberta, where he plans to rewrite Principia Mathematica using computer proof-assistants and research the history of comput­ing and artificial intelligence. jeremy shipley, who also earned his doctorate at Iowa, is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Volunteer State Com­munity College, Tennessee. He works in the history of analytic philosophy, specifically issues related to understanding geometry from early twentieth-century foundational standpoints, and in formal epistemology. tomasz mróz is an Associate Professor in the Philosophy department, University of Zielona Góra, Poland. Recently he published Selected Issues in the History of Polish Philosophy (Vilnius U. Publishing House, 2016), and researches the history of philosophy in Poland and modern receptions of Platonism. ruth derham is an independent scholar. Her biography Bertrand’s Brother: the Marriages, Morals and Misdemeanours of Frank, 2nd Earl Russell is forthcoming. She has published on Frank Russell and George Santayana in Overheard in Seville and plans a selection of Frank’s many writings on diverse subjects. tony simpson is Director of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation Ltd and editor of The Spokesman. He read Russian and East European Studies at Oxford. On the 5oth anniversary of Russell’s death, Tony celebrated his life with an “Afternoon Tea with Bertie” in Nottingham. nikolay milkov is Professor in Philosophy at the University of Paderborn, Germany.  Among other appointments (Oxford, Pittsburgh, St. Petersburg), he was Bertrand Russell Visiting Professor at McMaster University in 2012. Milkov has authored A Hundred Years of English Philosophy (2003) and Early Analytic Philosophy and the German Philosophical Tradition (2020) and edited Hermann Lotze’s Mikrokosmos (2017). He has a book proposal, Hermann Lotze and Other Philosophers. aaron preston is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Valparaiso University and was Bertrand Russell Visiting Professor at McMaster in 2019. He has published Analytic Philosophy: the History of an Illusion (2010) and edited Analytic Philosophy: an Interpretive History (2017). andrew g. bone is Senior Research Associate at the Russell Centre, where he has worked since 1997. He has edited or coedited five CPBR volumes of which Papers 26 is in press. sheila turcon, formerly of the Russell Archives, continues to publish installments of her website The Homes of Bertrand Russell. The latest is “Bagley Wood, 1905–11”. your editor continues to manage bracers and edit Papers 24, while looking out for new archival acquisitions (such as copies of letters to Thirring and Schrödinger in the Vienna University archives. Thanks are due Nick Griffin for improvements covid-19 and closureto the transcription of Russell’s notes on Lotze from a multigenerational copy.

The Bertrand Russell Archives have been closed since 18 March 2020, and the Library has not been lending books.

statues (equestrian) There’s a trend against politically offensive statues. Russell had little respect for national heroes honoured by equestrian statues.  “[M]ost of the people to whom equestrian statues have been put up have been guilty of [crimes committed on a large scale]”, he wrote in “Crime and the Community” (1950). His critique of equestrian statues began as early as 1927: “[I]f you are both grasping and strong, you will be admired, and equestrian statues will be put up to you when you die” (“Infancy and Character-Formation”), and it continued: “Equally obnoxious are books praising the type of man to whom equestrian statues are put up” (“Idealism for Children”, 1929). Central London has many such imperial statues. As for other statues, “Compare the height of the Nelson monument with the height of statues to Shakespeare, Newton or Darwin. This will give you the exact proportion in which we consider the extermination of enemies more important than services to mankind as a whole” (Papers 29: 354).

blm The best source for Russell’s interest and involvement in the movement now known as Black Lives Matter is Volume 2 of Bertrand Russell’s America, as well as “The Problem of Minorities” (1942) in Volume 1. The Bertrand Russell Society supports blm.

principia mathematica A fragment—just the spine—of the dustjacket to Volume 1 of the first edition survives in the Bodleian Library’s copy. Meanwhile a copy of the full first edition sold on 30 July at Christie’s for £112,500.

forthcoming books Papers 26, Cold War Fears and Hopes, 1950–52 is with Routledge. In 2021: Ruth Derham’s Bertrand’s Brother (Amberley), James Connelly’s Wittgenstein’s Critique of Russell’s Multiple-Relation Theory of Judgement (Anthem P.), Gülberk Koç MacLean’s Portraits of Bertrand Russell (Bloomsbury), Larry D. Harwood’s Mad about Belief: Religion in the Life and Thought of Bertrand Russell (Wipf and Stock).

russell. mcmaster.ca A master site for for Bertrand Russell at McMaster was needed. Russell Studies aren’t confined to a single department of the university. Thus I made russell.mcmaster.ca.

Except for the latest four issues (38,2 to 40,1) Russell is on open access at open access to e-Russellmulpress.mcmaster.ca/russelljournal/.

bracers. mcmaster. ca The Russell Archives’ annotated catalogue of letters held 132,415 records by 5 August 2020. When ra4 is entered, there will be thousands more for this trove of his last years.