On this day in 1970 Bertrand Russell died, aged ninety-seven. Like Henri Bergson before him, Russell won his 1950 Nobel Prize in literature without ever having published any. In presenting the award, the most that the Swedish Academy could offer to justify their selection of a mathematician-philosopher-social activist was the view that Russell often wrote as "the outspoken hero in a Shaw comedy" talked, and that his commitment to "rationality and humanity" was "in the spirit of Nobel's intention." ... FULL STORY »
