Talk:Bertrand Russell - Misplaced Pages

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Bertrand Russell was one of the Philosophy and religion good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

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Current status: Delisted good article

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Section sizes

Section size for Bertrand Russell (35 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	12,150	12,150
Biography	14	90,960
Early life and background	5,575	5,575
Childhood and adolescence	7,455	7,455
Education	1,434	1,434
Early career	5,805	5,805
First World War	7,132	7,132
G. H. Hardy on the Trinity controversy	2,633	2,633
Between the wars	12,778	12,778
Second World War	5,794	5,794
Later life	14,117	14,117
Political causes	12,891	12,891
Final years, death and legacy	9,861	15,332
Marriages and issue	5,471	5,471
Titles, awards and honours	540	3,036
Honours and Awards	552	552
Scholastic	1,944	1,944
Views	40	21,036
Philosophy	3,264	3,264
Religion	2,311	2,311
Society	10,956	10,956
Freedom of opinion and expression	819	819
Education	3,646	3,646
Selected works	16,812	16,812
See also	489	489
Notes	26	26
References	185	1,117
Citations	29	29
General and cited sources	34	903
Primary sources	486	486
Secondary sources	383	383
Further reading	302	3,557
Books about Russell's philosophy	1,307	1,307
Biographical books	1,948	1,948
External links	6,432	6,432
Total	155,615	155,615

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1, 2, 3, 4

This page has archives. Sections older than 183 days may be automatically archived by Lowercase sigmabot III when more than 4 sections are present.

I am sure his ignorant antisemitism is mentioned somewhere ...

... but I can't find it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.21.84.208 (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2023 (UTC)

Lead section

The lead section was recently trimmed here with the edit summary "Because these are the areas that he is most well-known of. Don't dilute the focus of the article with so many qualifiers". I'm not sure some of the key areas of Russell's work can simply be discarded from the lead so easily. What do other editors think? Thanks Martinevans123 (talk) 15:23, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

The relevant policy is in MOS:LEAD, and for convenience, I will quote the parts I like best here, though most of you are already familiar with this:

The average Misplaced Pages visit is a few minutes long. The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read. It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on—though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows. It should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view.

The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. The notability of the article's subject is usually established in the first few sentences. As in the body of the article itself, the emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic, according to reliable, published sources. Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article.

Let's look at some of the wikilinks trimmed in turn.

Logic: Russell's co-authorship of Principia Mathematica is discussed in the Early Career section, so it can certainly be mentioned in the lead paragraphs, even in the first paragraph. I would draw your attention, however, to the fact that "logic" appeared twice in the first paragraph and four times in the second paragraph before the trim. Could this be rewritten to be less repetitious?

Set theory: Russell's paradox is discussed in the Early career section, so it can certainly be mentioned in the lead paragraphs, even in the first paragraph. In the Early career section, could it clarify things to rearrange the text to explicitly call Russell's paradox a set-theoretic paradox?

Artificial intelligence: This field of study is not mentioned anywhere in this article. Thus, it is certainly a no-no to mention it in the lead paragraphs, let alone in the first paragraph.

Computer science: This field of study is mentioned in only one place in the article, in the See Also section. As with artificial intelligence, we cannot bring up computer science in the lead paragraphs until and unless we have established in the body of the article that Russell made an acknowledged contribution to computer science. By the way, I have to be skeptical of the entry for Russell in List of pioneers in computer science, as it does not cite any sources. Even if (for example) type systems were described in Principia Mathematica, and type systems are used in computer science, it is WP:SYNTH to infer from these two facts that Russell made a contribution to computer science. For us to state that, we must have a reliable source stating that Russell made an acknowledged contribution to computer science.

Cognitive science: Same as with Artificial intelligence.

You get the idea? The first paragraph is not the place to make unsubstantiated claims about Russell. Everything in the lead paragraphs has to be substantiated, with cited sources, in the main body of the article; and everything in the first paragraph in particular, has in addition to be crucial to the article, as it may be the only thing someone reads when they (first) visit this article. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:30, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

Thanks for that critique. I was expecting a reply from User:CactiStaccingCrane. Perhaps a slightly longer edit summary might have helped? Martinevans123 (talk) 08:50, 2 January 2024 (UTC)

So do you think any of those should be replaced in the first paragraph? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 19:03, 3 January 2024 (UTC)

The bold thing for me to do would have been to just add back logic and set theory, and maybe one or more of the branches of philosophy (I haven't looked at them more closely). But I am not a Russell expert, and I wanted to see if other editors would want to argue about this, and also, I have been kind of busy in real life, so I held off. But I will get to it by and by, unless somebody gets there first. Bruce leverett (talk) 03:03, 4 January 2024 (UTC)

I added back logic and set theory, but removed linguistics and cognitive science. Regarding the branches of analytic philosopy, it looks to me from the cited source that he indeed made contributions in these branches, but we have to provide more explicit support for that in the sections about his career, before we can bring them up in the first paragraph. Note, by the way, that the cited source is an encyclopedia (the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). We aren't supposed to be citing other encyclopedias, since we ourselves are an encyclopedia; we should be using secondary sources. Bruce leverett (talk) 04:04, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Nitpick: other tertiary sources are most often used in situations adjacent to this one, i.e. when weighing the due weight of different points. Remsense留 04:07, 11 January 2024 (UTC)

Russell and appeasement

In the article if says "and initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1943" but elsewhere it says "In 1940, he changed his appeasement view that avoiding a full-scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler. He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy. In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare called "relative political pacifism": "War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils."" and on the article 'Russell's political views' it says "he supported the policy of appeasement; but by 1940 he acknowledged that to preserve democracy, Hitler had to be defeated. This same reluctant value compromise was shared by his acquaintance A.A. Milne.". It seems to be the consensus on the literature published about Russell by routledge that such changes happened in 1940, yet it is not described as such in the initial quote. 129.234.0.182 (talk) 10:20, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Suggest changing to: ".. initially supported appeasement against Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, before changing his view in 1940, and refining it again in 1943." Martinevans123 (talk) 10:25, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

Languages

Russell spoke German (he expected his conversation with Vladimir Lenin to be in German rather than English). I don't know where to add this information to the page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TK9c-caEcw — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:E0A:867:5F90:6BE8:18EA:D818:5BC3 (talk) 09:01, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Perhaps in "Education"? Do you have any better source(s)? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 09:03, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Short description

AradhanaChatterjee, I had assumed that, in general, the short description should reflect the opening sentence of the article. Is there any reason why this should not apply here? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 14:27, 10 September 2024 (UTC)

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