Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love ,the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind。
These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair。
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy -- ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy。
I have sought it , next, because it relieves loneliness-- that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world , into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss。
I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined。
This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what at last I have found。
伯特兰·阿瑟·威廉·罗素(Bertrand Arthur William Russell,1872年—1970年),英国哲学家、数学家、逻辑学家、历史学家、文学家,分析哲学的主要创始人,世界和平运动的倡导者和组织者。主要作品有《西方哲学史》、《哲学问题》、《心的分析》、《物的分析》等。[1]罗素出身于曼摩兹郡一个贵族家庭。1890年考入剑桥大学三一学院,后曾两度在该校任教。1908年当选为皇家学会会员。1950年获诺贝尔文学奖,[1]并被授予英国嘉行勋章。[2]1967年组织了斯德哥尔摩战争罪犯审判法庭,谴责美国在越南的政策。[2]1970年在威尔士的家中去世。[2]罗素不仅在哲学、逻辑和数学上成就显著,而且在教育学、社会学、政治学和文学等许多领域都有建树。他前后期哲学思想变化很大,早期信奉新黑格尔主义,深信绝对、共相的存在,把数学视为柏拉图理念的证据。后来与摩尔一起叛离了绝对唯心主义,转向新实在论。
Bertrand Russell First published Thu Dec 7, 1995; substantive revision Thu May 1, 2003 Bertrand Arthur William Russell (b.1872 - d.1970) was a British philosopher, logician, essayist, and social critic, best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his defense of logicism (the view that mathematics is in some important sense reducible to logic), and his theories of definite descriptions and logical atomism. Along with G.E. Moore, Russell is generally recognized as one of the founders of analytic philosophy. Along with Kurt Gödel, he is also regularly credited with being one of the two most important logicians of the twentieth century. Over the course of his long career, Russell made significant contributions, not just to logic and philosophy, but to a broad range of other subjects including education, history, political theory and religious studies. In addition, many of his writings on a wide variety of topics in both the sciences and the humanities have influenced generations of general readers. After a life marked by controversy (including dismissals from both Trinity College, Cambridge, and City College, New York), Russell was awarded the Order of Merit in 1949 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950. Also noted for his many spirited anti-war and anti-nuclear protests, Russell remained a prominent public figure until his death at the age of 97.