Word: principia
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Died. George Edward Moore, 84, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge University, author (Philosophical Studies, Principia Ethica), whose neorealistic philosophy influenced Bertrand Russell; in Cambridge. One historian of philosophy called him the "greatest, acutest, and most skillful questioner of modern philosophy...
...Even so, the author often takes too doting an attitude. Most intelligent children are somewhat saddened, for example, when they find that Euclid's axioms cannot themselves be proven; but in the disappointment of the eleven-year old Russell, Wood imagines he sees already adumbrated three volumes of the Principia Mathematica. Nor are his repeated references to Russell as "the greatest logician since Aristotle" as indubitable as they sound; Frege would be a more likely contender for this distinction, and Goedel perhaps an equal...
...professor scoffs, "He's groping for a comprehensive theory of the universe with Newton's Principia as his ideal." A social relations tutor observes, "His followers are as avid as Marxists." And Pravda replies, "He's a tool of capitalistic warmongers." But while the scholarly tempest brews, Professor of Sociology Talcott Parsons answers for himself--"Heavens, let's not go off the deep...
...ancient world, for instance, their respective languages were concurrently universal. Latin remained the dominant language in the West until the Renaissance, when the rise of nationalism ended its universality. It then became an academic, but not spoken, tongue. As Gode illustrates, "When Newton interrupted the composition of his Latin Principia, it was roast beef and not caro bubula tosta' for which he asked...
There are a few professional philosophers who, remembering with awe the Bertrand Russel of Principia Mathematics and An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth, mourn his recent "decline" into light literature. Father William, they argue, should not be standing on his head. Any reader of the "Nightmares" however, will be inclined to think that more remains to the eighty-three year old Bertrand Russell (and to the somewhat younger Cheshire cat) than his grin. A remarkably acute thinker is merely chuckling in a different medium...