[amarte]

As a side note since this discussion is related to Russell and his brilliant contributions, I think a similar discussion can be had regarding Russell's contemporary and co-author Alfred North Whitehead (mentioned breifly in the article).

If Russell can be charged with "selling out" or directing his work toward a more general audience, Whitehead can be accused of the opposite, or perhaps even worse. If you read into his works post Principia (which he co-authored with Russell) you find a brilliant logician and philosopher begin to deviate from commonly held assumptions of Western thought and attempt to articulate a philosophy often at odds with "objective" ways of thinking. His works are interesting yet difficult because he is often so at odds with 20th century science and philosophy that he has to create his own terms to describe phenomena, which he builds upon with increasingly unfamiliar terminology until most readers feel completely alienated and give up.

Imo both Russell and Whitehead were great minds and deserve their fair share of consideration and contemplation, pre- and post- Principia.

[lordgrenville]

Apropos AN Whitehead, I listened to an interesting talk the other week [1] about "process philosophy", specifically in phil of biology. The speaker (John Dupré) thought that he was working along the same lines as Whitehead, but that he was a poor writer so no-one can really be sure if they understood him.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhczxmLkGHI