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For some time now, analytic philosophy has ceased to be simply regarded as that school of thought which, born with Frege and Russell, flourished with the Vienna Circle, before being taken up and diversified in the United States. Many studies have stressed how much the work of the so-called founding figures of the analytic tradition owed to other schools of thought (Hylton 1990; Griffin 1991; van der Schaar 2013). Others have demonstrated that the analytic current—far from originating solely in the works of Russell and Frege—has its roots in various traditions that synthesized and splintered in complex ways throughout the twentieth century. We have learned of the influence of the work of Bolzano, that of Brentano and his School, as well as Twardowski and the Lwów–Warsaw School (Künne, Siebel, and Textor 1997; Smith 1994; Woleński 1989). Plurality of sources and influences, plurality of traditions, and plurality of places. The history of analytic philosophy, then, is not so much the narration of a unified, uniform, and continuous development as the interweaving of varied movements and distinct problems.

This more nuanced image of the analytic tradition ensuing from a pluralization of sources is the result of a backward-looking perspective. Starting from a given period, commentators foreground what, in a corpus, doctrine, or movement, refers—upstream, so to speak—to contexts that have been neglected up until now. But the reverse operation—which would consist in studying how, downstream, a corpus, doctrine, or movement was received in a context that has so far been ignored—has not often been practiced in the history of analytic philosophy. At first glance, there seem to be good reasons for this. It is usually interesting to discover that works considered canonical—in the sense of being already recognized as worthy of study—have a previously unknown source or influence. Moreover, tracing the reception of a canonical source in another canonical work is generally rewarding. But investigating the neglected receptions of a canonical work offers no guarantee of yielding new insights. Why, then, try to pull them out of the dustbin of history?

In the study of the history of philosophy and science, however, it is common historiographical practice to systematically examine the divergent receptions of an author, doctrine or movement. The period for which it has recently been most emphasized is the eighteenth century (Pocock 1999; Israel 2006; Lilti 2021). For about two decades, the focus of commentators has shifted from the philosophers and scientists considered to be canonical and the study of their sources and influences, to the neglected receptions of their works and ideas throughout the world (Withers 2008; Butterwick, Davies, and Espinosa 2008; Sorkin 2011). Closer in time to early analytic philosophy, there are now also studies on the global reception of Comte’s positivism and Bergson’s philosophy (Feichtinger, Fillafer, and Surman 2018; Worms and Zanfi 2021).

Three reasons are usually put forward for adopting such an approach. First of all, the distinction between canonical and non-canonical works depends on a variety of factors—some of which have nothing to do with philosophical, scientific or historical value (Park 2013). Analyzing the reception of a corpus, doctrine, or movement allows one to uncover the intricate dynamics of canonization and marginalization. In our case, the study of the non-canonical reception of Russell’s scientific philosophy could further our understanding of the formation of the philosophical canon of analytic philosophy (Lapointe and Reck 2023). Second, although not always, the manners in which canonical works have been interpreted, appropriated, and transformed throughout their divergent reception might open up new ways of understanding them. Reception requires the translation of a source to a local context. But it is precisely through such translations that previously unrecognized interpretations of canonical works can come to light. In this way, the forward-looking perspective we advance might contribute to a more multivocal reading of Russell. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, by exploring the manners in which philosophers have mediated between the tradition of the source and the traditions of the local context, reception studies make it possible to distance ourselves from our historiographical categories by revealing their limits when applied elsewhere. Indeed, one of the lessons of the new reception approach to eighteenth century philosophy has been to pluralize the concept of the Enlightenment, and thereby also that of anti- and counter-Enlightenments (Chakrabarty 2000; Thorne 2010; Tomba 2019). We believe that the study of the reception of analytic philosophy can have a similar effect, compelling us to pluralize our conceptions of analytic philosophy and its antagonists, and thereby to see the historiography of twentieth century philosophy in a new light.

Now, why focus on Russell and his scientific philosophy? In the first half of the twentieth century, Russell’s readership was much larger and more diverse than that of other early analytic philosophers. Importantly, his early books on logic and philosophy were translated into many languages and circulated widely (Blackwell, Ruja, and Turcon 2003). The emphasis on scientific philosophy is motivated by the importance Russell attached to it in the period following the publication of Principia Mathematica. But another reason was more decisive in our choice: the indefinite character of Russell’s antagonist. The objective of Russell’s scientific philosophy was to apply mathematical logic to traditional philosophical problems in order to reformulate and possibly solve them; it was defined in opposition to movements like idealism and Bergsonism (Griffin 1991; Vrahimis 2021). The problems in question stemmed from Russell’s understanding of Western philosophy as taught in Cambridge at the end of the nineteenth century. But in principle, his method could be applied and expanded to address a wider array of problems. By studying how his scientific philosophy was received, we can come to understand how his program functioned in other contexts with different antagonists. Was logical analysis, for instance, equally relevant to addressing problems arising from Chinese neo-Confucianism, or was the “supreme maxim in scientific philosophy” as effective in countering the views of Russian neo-Kantians?

This volume makes no claim to be exhaustive. Little is known about the global reception of Russell’s scientific philosophy. We do not know whether, for example, a reception of Russell’s scientific philosophy existed in the first half of the twentieth century on the Korean or Arabian peninsulas. And even when the existence of such a reception is attested, the literature on the subject in English is scarce. There is still no detailed mapping of the channels—i.e., correspondents, (scientific) societies, journals, universities, etc.—through which Russell’s works and ideas circulated around the world. Even at the methodological level, research is in its infancy. In this volume, the authors have often chosen to define their subject through national contexts. But one can easily question this choice. Would it not be more appropriate to use sociological categories such as gender (Elkind and Klein 2024) or ethnicity, to distinguish by language groups, or—as is sometimes done with the Enlightenment—confessional criteria?

We do not claim to answer these questions here. The objective of this special issue is to support our argument in favor of a new approach to the study of the history of analytic philosophy by presenting case studies that demonstrate the value of examining the neglected reception of canonical works.

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This special issue is the result of the 6th Annual TiLPS History of Analytic Philosophy Workshop: The Global Reception of Russell’s Scientific Philosophy that took place on 17–18 August 2023. All papers—with the exception of Chakraborty’s—were presented at the conference, though not all presented papers are included in this issue. The rest of this introduction will be a summary of the content.

The first contribution is by Jan Vrhovski, who has been examining the reception of Russell’s philosophy in China over the last several years (Vrhovski 2021a, 2021b, 2021c, 2024). He recounts how Russell’s invitation to lecture at Peking University in October 1920 was closely linked with the broader cultural developments of the May Fourth Movement. During this phase of modernization, Chinese philosophers such as Zhang Shenfu and Wang Xinggong turned to the resources of Western socialism and natural science for new conceptions of “objectivity” (keguan), “comprehensiveness” (tong and chedi) and “logic” (luoji). To them, Russell was not just an academic—he personified the spirit of the new scientific philosophy. Following Russell’s visit, scientific philosophy became the subject of scathing critiques during the 1923 “Science and the View of Life” debate, particularly by Chinese philosophers influenced by the neo-vitalism of Driesch and Bergson. These philosophers sought to counterbalance the new “scientism” with a philosophy of life. Vrhovski shows how in its aftermath Russell’s name became associated with the development of the New Realist movement, and how this new generation established the study of mathematical logic at Yenching and Tsinghua Universities in the late 1920s.

In “External Relations: Russell, New Realism, and the Harvard School of Logic”, Sander Verhaegh contextualizes Russell’s 1914 visit to Harvard University, highlighting both the receptive intellectual climate and the lasting impact of his presence on the Department of Philosophy. At the time, the department was in a state of crisis—William James had died, George Santayana had resigned, and Royce had suffered a stroke. Amid this vacuum, its main factions believed that Russell was the ideal person to fill the intellectual void. While the idealists around Royce were deeply engaged with developments in logic, the new realists saw in Russell a fellow-traveler who could lend rigor to their program. In the wake of Russell’s visit, the department hired three logician-philosophers—H. M. Sheffer, C. I. Lewis, and A. N. Whitehead—who would form a nascent “school of logic” at Harvard, thereby inadvertently paving the way for the “Analytic Turn” at the department. That is, it is precisely these logicians who would go on to train a new generation—among them, Susanne Langer, William Parry, Henry Leonard, and W. V. Quine—who would deepen the engagement with Russell’s work, focusing not only on his contributions to logic, but on his program of a scientific philosophy.

In her contribution, “‘Please let me know whether it seems to you absurd or ridiculous to bring in necessity and contingency.’ Dorothy Wrinch and Bertrand Russell on the Role of Logic in our Knowledge of the External World”, Giulia Felappi explores Dorothy Wrinch’s reflections on logic, epistemology, and metaphysics, focusing on her interpretation of Russell’s conception of scientific philosophy. While Wrinch embraced the core tenets of Russell’s program—sharing his enthusiasm for the new logic and adopting his method of logical construction in philosophy—she also expanded on it by addressing objections and refining his positions throughout their correspondence. Felappi further demonstrates how, later in her scientific career, Wrinch applied the new logic to theoretical biology, revealing the continuity of her philosophical outlook. Altogether, she gives a clear example of how Russell’s program was received and adapted by a philosopher navigating different scientific and philosophical contexts.

Two papers are devoted to the reception of Russell in France. Sébastien Gandon examines how the discussions of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus during the summer of 1919 in Lulworth—between Russell, Wrinch, and Jean Nicod—influenced both Russell’s introduction to the Tractatus and Nicod’s interpretation of Wittgenstein. A student of Russell, Nicod was among the first French philosophers to engage extensively with Russell’s new scientific philosophy. In his primary doctoral thesis La géométrie dans le monde sensible (1924), Nicod uses Wittgenstein’s views on symbolism and his picture theory to rebut Henri Bergson’s claim that the application of geometry to perception spatializes our experience, thereby alienating us and distorting the immediate data of consciousness. Nicod, therefore, can be seen as a mediator between Russell and the new scientific philosophy, and Bergson and the French tradition of epistemology. Like Russell in his introduction to the Tractatus, Nicod foregrounds the notion of formal analogy, but whereas Russell is convinced that the relation between language and reality can be described externally, he considers it to be internal. As Gandon stresses, Nicod—in contrast to Russell—thus understood that Wittgenstein’s theory of symbolism implies that one cannot prescribe to a symbol its form of representation in advance.

Wim Vanrie details a later stage in the reception of Russell’s scientific philosophy in France, focusing on Jules Vuillemin’s reading of Russell in his Leçons sur la première philosophie de Russell (1968). Combining Russell’s early realism with an almost Carnapian voluntarism, Vuillemin developed an account of philosophical systems modelled on the axiomatic method, with axioms as ontological posits of the fundamental constituents of reality. As Vanrie narrates, Vuillemin instrumentalized Russell’s scientific philosophy to oppose the idealism and absolutism that he perceived among his French contemporaries in the 1960s. He argues that this antagonism ends up compromising Vuillemin’s interpretation of Russell by overemphasizing its ontological dimension—an aspect that remains largely implicit in Russell’s own work. Ultimately, Vanrie concludes that Vuillemin’s philosophical position is unstable: while it purports to offer a neutral, descriptive account of philosophical systems, it inadvertently becomes prescriptive, favoring Vuillemin’s own philosophical commitments.

Pascal Roure analyzes how Russell’s scientific philosophy was received in 1930s Turkey. She begins by situating the reception within a broader cultural shift in the late Ottoman empire and early Turkish Republic, marked by the secularization of universities and the emergence of a “modern scientific spirit”. Within philosophy, the reception of Russell’s scientific philosophy was shaped by a debate between French positivism and American pragmatism—two traditions to which Turkish intellectual life remained closely connected: French cultural influence remained strong, while several Turkish philosophers had studied with John Dewey. Examining the introductions by Mehmet Saffet, one of the students of Dewey, the translations of the historian of science Abdülhak Adnan Adıvar, as well as the writings on Russell by Hilmi Ziya Ülken, a collaborater of Reichenbach, Roure lays bare the different ways in which Russell’s scientific philosophy was interpreted, appropriated, and transformed. Adıvar pointed out the similarities between Russell’s logical atomism and Reichenbach’s philosophy; Saffet interpreted Russell’s work in a pragmatist vein and in opposition to pragmatism; and Ülken portrayed Russell as a representative of New Realism. Roure’s study serves as a model for our approach, as it challenges historiographical categories through a transnational perspective on the development of early analytic philosophy.

Nirmalya Narayan Chakraborty’s paper is a first exploration of the reception of Russell in India. He calls attention to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s—a jurist and reformer who was the chair of the committee that drafted the Constitution of India—reading of Russell’s Principles of Social Reconstruction. Ambedkar interprets Russell’s pacifism as compatible with the use of force and violence for political stability, distinguishing between constructive and destructive violence. He further nuances Russell’s conception of property and “love of money”, stressing the close relationship between economic development and progressive politics. In the next part, Chakraborty recounts the conversations between Russell and the singer Dilip Kumar Roy, offering a summary of Russell’s responses to Roy’s questions on mysticism, asceticism, charity work and religion. Chakraborty also chronicles Russell’s ambiguous relation to Indian culture, his criticism of Gandhi’s “Quit India” movement, and his imperialist tendencies. The last part of the paper is devoted to the reception of Russell’s philosophy among late twentieth century Indian philosophers of language P. K. Sen, Madhucchanda Sen, and the Sanskrit scholar Badrinath Shukla’s criticism of Russell’s theory of propositions.

Acknowledgements

We want to thank the members of the Exiled Empiricists project, Claudia Cristalli, Gregor E. Bös, Nina Ijdens, and Sander Verhaegh, as well as Alex M. Klein and Christian J. Feldbacher-Escamilla for their comments on the introduction.