Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1893 and became one of the early 20th century's prominent logicians, leading the British "revolt against idealism" alongside G. E. Moore. With Alfred North Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, a landmark attempt to reduce mathematics to logic, and his article "On Denoting" became a paradigm of analytic philosophy. He went to prison during the First World War for pacifism, initially supported appeasing Nazi Germany before reversing course in 1943, then after 1945 welcomed American hegemony even at nuclear cost before turning against it to condemn Vietnam and campaign for disarmament. The Nobel committee gave him the Literature Prize in 1950 for championing humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought - a choice that said more about the century's arguments than about logic itself.