BRACERS Record Detail for 121942

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Collection code
RA3
Recent acquisition no.
1288
Source if not BR
McMaster U., Russell Archives Staff
Recipient(s)
Blackwell, Kenneth
Sender(s)
Lenzen, Victor F.
Date
1971/10/20
Form of letter
TLS
Pieces
2
Notes, topics or text

"The group of four students who studied under Russell in London during the fall and winter of 1916-17, consisted of Dorothy Wrinch, who was a student at Girton College and appeared to assist Mr. Russell as secretary; Jean Nicod; Armstrong; and myself. Nicod was a brilliant young Frenchman, tall, blond, and spare.... I visited him and his wife in Paris sometime after March, 1917.... I did not learn the first name, or even first initial, of Armstrong. He was a young man, a student of philosophy, who had been disabled during the war and had been discharged.... The group met with Russell once a week in one of the rooms on the first floor of the house of the then Earl. The procedure was to discuss the subjects of Volume I of Principia Mathematica. The introduction, which Russell told us he wrote, contains topics of great philosophical interest ... it has always appeared to me, even after these many years, that students of the Principia have never got beyond the introduction."

Russell at Harvard: "To the students, Russell was a super-human figure. It would be impossible for me to describe the adulation, veneration, and even awe which he inspired. Especially to be noted is that he was very kind and hospitable to students. He had an apartment in a house a block or so off Harvard Square and once a week he was at home for tea for us students. His witty remarks, uttered with a quizzical smile, were heard with delight. I remember one remark in his first meeting with the small class in logic (for which I do not seem to have notes). He said, 'a fact is not a thing. When I say that I am talking nonsense, but I want you to take it as a profound truth.' ... Another remark concerns J.M. Keynes. ... 'J.N. Keynes wrote an old-fashioned logic book, but his son is a much abler man'." Lenzen also recounts an incident involving Ralphael Demos and Professor Perry.

Permission
Everyone
Record no.
121942
Record created
Jun 21, 2014
Record last modified
Apr 09, 2020
Created/last modified by
rstaple