Oddly, the comments below (with the exception of Enkidu's) are concerned entirely with Russell's religious views. While he was an atheist, Russell was far less dogmatic about his views than the reviewers below would make him out to be. He saw philosophy as studying those areas of knowledge between science (what we can know for certain) and religion (what we can only speculate about or accept on faith). Judged by this definition, the social sciences have stolen much of philosphy's subject matter over the last 200-leaving the field populated largely by mystics and arid logicians. Russell was a rare exception: he wrote on a wide variety of subjects in a very clear, concise prose style. He is generally recognized as the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. With one or two exceptions, Russell is also the only post-1900 philospher worth reading. His greatest work may be his 'History of Philosophy', which is especially good on the Pre-Socratics (Russell considers them the first scientists, and despite their primitive theories, freer of dogma and superstition than nearly any philosopher before the 17th century). Russell's concentration on the political/ideological influence of philosophy makes otherwise dull and/or deluded philosophers interesting; even when they were wrong, understanding the origin and impact of their ideas is necessary to understanding the history of their time. The book goes downhill fast after around 1650-Russell had to meet a publishing deadline, I believe-but it remains the best work of its kind. Otherwise, much of Russell's work is concerned with arcane areas of mathematics and logic, but his essays are very accessible-few philosophers wrote as well as he did.

Why I Am Not A Christian is an excellent piece. His analogy of seemingly obvious theoretical conclusions are almost comical. Will read again and again!

One of the greatest logicians who ever lived, and also a remarkably sane and progressive social thinker. You can depend on him to provoke dogmatic thinkers to anger, and enrage bleating flag-wavers and bombastic right-wing pinheads. In his long life he fought courageously for reason and tolerance over unthinking obedience; he correctly identified fear as the root of most political oppression; and he left an impressive legacy of writing, including essays, his autobiography, the History of Western Philosophy, and the Principia. Probably he is the finest all-round representative of Liberalism of the 20th century.

I have found that suggestions and advice from retards are more helpful than this guy whom I have also found to be full of lies and controdictions. He was brought up the aristicrat son (reciving a State Wage, jet against the monarchy) of a liberal polititian and as a Quaker. Early on he claimed that through meditation God gave him spiritial enlightenment, but latter claimed that there is no God and that meditation is a waste of time. From then on he remained an Athiest. He became himself a liberal politian but latter changed to the Labour party. His political views are radical, center-left, pacifist (twice jailed for civel disobedience for this cause), and he sympathysed with communists. He graduated at Cambridge and his grammer is of an exceptional high standard. Russel claimed he said the psychologist wrote 180 for his IQ test (I believe this was his (raw-)"score" on the Stanford Binet not his actual IQ). Russell also claimed his good friend Albert Einstein and his favorite Philosopher Nietzche had the same IQ as himself. Nearly all of Russells beliefs are in actual contrast to that of the vast magority of people with an IQ over 150 (even much lower). He had several mental brakedowns. Won a noble prize for Philosophy. I think he was a member of the Fabian society.

Brilliant refutation of outmoded religiosity.