如何评价哲学家罗素？对他的第一印象是什么？他的言行对你的思想产生了哪些影响？

伯特兰罗素是对我影响最大的一个人。

我忘了是先由哲学认识罗素，还是由罗素再了解哲学的，那时我正在读高中，拜读罗素的第一步著作当然是他的《西方哲学史》。商务印书馆出版，上册有很大部分是繁体字印刷，后来进一步了解他的经历，他的成果，他的轶事，读了他很多著作。

罗素影响我最深的是他的不可知论思想，我并非从他那里获得的这种思想，实际上，他的不可知论思想与我对世界的认识非常投合，然后这种世界观在他那里得以系统地发展成不可知论，在我看来，信仰必须经过理性来审判，必须经得起质疑和反省，任何非理性的东西都必须抛弃，经过一番筛查，剩下的就只有不可知论。

其次，是他对人生遭遇不幸、灾难、死亡的见解，当我读到《一个自由人的崇拜》时，我看到了文字下面闪耀着最伟大的智慧，使得人生所有的罹难集合在一起都显得那么的卑微，当时似乎还只是引起了心灵上的共鸣，但几年后，我不幸遇上了恐惧症，发作的时候，那种对死亡的恐惧让我感到致命的绝望，唯一能振救我的，只能是靠自己理智拼命抵抗。我不得不说，正是借助罗素的智慧，最终让我彻底地战胜了心魔。

最后，罗素的文笔相当了得，简练而优美，有条理有逻辑，绝对不话痨（王小波也读罗素，但他却是个话痨），他的文章百看不厌。（文笔优美跟翻译有很大的关系）

我一直珍惜着这样的句子：

“人的生命是短暂而虚弱的；陷入无情和黑暗的真正厄运，会慢慢的降临到他和他的同类身上。对善恶的盲目，不顾一切的毁灭，无法克服的烦恼，布满了人生的严 酷之路；对人来说，今天宣告失去他最挚爱的人，明天他就自己穿过黑暗的大门。在灾祸要降临之前，使他那短暂生命显得高贵的崇高思想，最值得珍爱。鄙视命运 奴隶之懦怯的恐惧，崇拜自己亲手所建立的圣地；不因为机遇的主宰而泄气，从统治他的外在生活的蛮横放肆的暴虐中，保持一种心灵的自由；骄傲的向那只片刻容 忍他的认识和谴责的不可抗拒的力量挑战，象疲倦而又顽强不屈的阿特拉斯那样，不顾意识力量的蹂躏行进，独自撑持，以自己的思想造就全新的世界。”

2022年4月12日增加

这几天啃新概念4的时候还读到了罗素的How to grow old, 写的很好，在此分享全文。全文在网上较容易找到，译文见新东方网站，加粗为本文作者所喜欢的部分。

How to Grow Old
Bertrand Russell
　　In spite of the title, this article will really be on how not to grow old, which, at my time of life, is a much more important subject. My first advice would be to choose your ancestors carefully. Although both my parents died young, I have done well in this respect as regards my other ancestors. My maternal grandfather, it is true, was cut off in the flower of his youth at the age of sixty-seven, but my other three grandparents all lived to be over eighty. Of remote ancestors I can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off. A great-grandmother of mine, who was a friend of Gibbon, lived to the age of ninety-two, and to her last day remained a terror to all her descendants. My maternal grandmother, after having nine children who survived, one who died in infancy, and many miscarriages, as soon as she became a widow devoted herself to women's higher education. She was one of the founders of Girton College, and worked hard at opening the medical profession to women. She used to relate how she met in Italy an elderly gentleman who was looking very sad. She inquired the cause of his melancholy and he said that he had just parted from his two grandchildren. "Good gracious," she exclaimed, "I have seventy-two grandchildren, and if I were sad each time I parted from one of them, I should have a dismal existence!" "Madre snaturale," he replied. But speaking as one of the seventy-two, I prefer her recipe. After the age of eighty she found she had some difficulty in getting to sleep, so she habitually spent the hours from midnight to 3 a.m. in reading popular science. I do not believe that she ever had time to notice that she was growing old. This, I think, is the proper recipe for remaining young. If you have wide and keen interests and activities in which you can still be effective, you will have no reason to think about the merely statistical fact of the number of years you have already lived, still less of the probable brevity of your future.
　　As regards health, I have nothing useful to say since I have little experience of illness. I eat and drink whatever I like, and sleep when I cannot keep awake. I never do anything whatever on the ground that it is good for health, though in actual fact the things I like doing are mostly wholesome.
Psychologically there are two dangers to be guarded against in old age. One of these is undue absorption in the past. It does not do to live in memories, in regrets for the good old days, or in sadness about friends who are dead. One's thoughts must be directed to the future, and to things about which there is something to be done. This is not always easy; one's own past is a gradually increasing weight. It is easy to think to oneself that one's emotions used to be more vivid than they are, and one's mind more keen. If this is true it should be forgotten, and if it is forgotten it will probably not be true.（这一句可以用于回应各类“过去xx更好/现在这一代不如XX后”这一类的言论）
The other thing to be avoided is clinging to youth in the hope of sucking vigor from its vitality. When your children are grown up they want to live their own lives, and if you continue to be as interested in them as you were when they were young, you are likely to become a burden to them, unless they are unusually callous. I do not mean that one should be without interest in them, but one's interest should be contemplative and, if possible, philanthropic, but not unduly emotional. Animals become indifferent to their young as soon as their young can look after themselves, but human beings, owing to the length of infancy, find this difficult.
　　I think that a successful old age is easier for those who have strong impersonal interests involving appropriate activities. It is in this sphere that long experience is really fruitful, and it is in this sphere that the wisdom born of experience can be exercised without being oppressive. It is no use telling grown-up children not to make mistakes, both because they will not believe you, and because mistakes are an essential part of education. But if you are one of those who are incapable of impersonal interests, you may find that your life will be empty unless you concern yourself with your children and grandchildren. In that case you must realize that while you can still render them material services, such as making them an allowance or knotting them jumpers, you must not expect that they will enjoy your company.
　　Some old people are oppressed by the fear of death. In the young there is a justification for this feeling. Young men who have reason to fear that they will be killed in a battle may justifiably feel bitter in the thought that they have been cheated of the best things that life has to offer. But in an old man who has known human joys and sorrows, and has achieved whatever work it was in him to do, the fear of death is somewhat abject and ignoble. The best way to overcome it----so at least it seems to me----is to make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river----small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his life in this way, will not suffer form the fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue. And if, with the decay of vitality, weariness increases, the thought of rest will not be unwelcome. I should wish to die while still at work, knowing that others will carry on what I can no longer do, and content in the thought that what was possible has been done.

新概念英语第4册第11课How to grow old原文及译文_新概念_新东方在线 (koolearn.com)

个人对罗素印象很深刻的是他和爱因斯坦写的一段话：

　We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt.
　　我们在此发言的身份不是某个民族、大洲或信条的的成员，而是人类这一物种的成员，这一物种的存续并非理所当然。

再搬运我关于罗素的一个回答。

本回答主要参考文献：

(1) Grattan-Guinness, I. (2009). BERTRAND RUSSELL (1872-1970), MAN OF DISSENT.Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London,63(4), 365-379. Retrieved May 20, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40647311

(2) 扩展阅读：The Russell-Einstein Manifesto罗素-爱因斯坦宣言 - 知乎 (zhihu.com)

(3) • Bertrand Russell: Which Way to Peace? (1936) - Full Computer Version (big-lies.org)

(4) Bertrand Russel Quotes on War | Quotes from the Past

战前

在1936年，罗素发表了名为Which way to peace的演讲，整个演讲有12个章节，由Michael Joseph Ltd整理出版。在第1章，罗素就表达了新的战争的担忧，但是，罗素不认为新的战争是不可避免的，相反，罗素认为，既然战争是人类意志的结果，那么人类的和平的意志也可以阻止战争（Are we then to accept fatalistically the conclusion that war is inevitable? I do not take this view. War is not a convulsion of nature, like an earthquake; it is a result of human volition, and human volition can prevent it. ）以及，引用当时的一些军事家的言论，罗素指出下一场战争中，例如航空兵等新式武器会带来非常巨大的威胁。在第二章的末尾，罗素认为新的世界大战会带来堪比30年战争的巨大破坏，前景相当堪忧(In England, France, Germany, and Italy, unless one side is immediately victorious, we may expect a loss of life to which there has been nothing comparable since the Thirty Years' War, which is said to have halved the population of Germany. This will inevitably be accompanied by the virtual destruction of all social bonds except military discipline, which alone will have the strength to stand against panic. The peace will be concluded between oligarchies of soldiers, sailors and airmen, who will form the government everywhere. The course of the war may lead, in one country or in several, to mutinies, in which case the anarchy is likely to be prolonged long after the end of the international war; but even in that case, though by an even more painful process, a military government must be the ultimate outcome, either through foreign conquest or through the effort to prevent it.)言下之意，就是希望在防患于未然，在战争爆发之前阻止战争（3）。尽管二次大战结束后的情况没有罗素设想的那么可怕，但是随后而至的冷战和核武器使得人类文明长时间徘徊在毁灭的边缘。以及，不可否认，正如 @高林 所说，“战争让欧洲各国财产破产，在道义上也破产，世界大战的道义之责是不言而喻的。”

战后

在1945年11月28日，那个时候广岛和长崎的原子弹爆炸之后，在House of Lords的演讲中，罗素就设想了比原子弹可怕得多的氢弹。在1947年11月，罗素便在演讲中阐述了他关于全球核燃料控制的设想。然后，在1955年，罗素和爱因斯坦联合发表公开信主张核裁军，在联合宣言中，罗素和爱因斯坦说：“鉴于未来任何世界大战必将使用核武器，而这种武器威胁着人类的继续生存，我们敦促世界各国政府认识到并且公开承认，它们的目的决不能通过世界大战来达到，因此，我们也敦促它们寻求和平办法来解决它们之间的一切争端。”（1, 2）那个时候，美国的原子弹和氢弹都已经出现了，同时在1949年苏联也拥有了原子弹，罗素意识到这毫无疑问苏联和其他国家也会拥有如此可怕的武器，所以罗素非常希望让所有人都禁用核武器。所以，罗素改变了他以前的一个想法——在1945年8月到1948年11月的时候，罗素曾经有过对苏联发起进攻的主张（1948年的时候，罗素说：Either we must have war against Russia, before she has the atom bomb, or we will have to lie down and let them govern us . . . Anything is better than submission.）。不过，罗素反对进攻朝鲜和越南，并且罗素参与了一个叫IWCT的组织，这个组织主张要用和纽伦堡审判相同的标准对待美国的罪行，并且一致认为美国政府需要为在韩国，越南，泰国，菲律宾以及澳大利亚和新西兰的包括种族灭绝在内的罪行负责（1, 4）。同时，在1961年，罗素对美国的核弹以及可能使用核弹的领导人表示了极大的担忧，他说：“Kennedy and Macmillan were worse than Hitler.”以及，在这段时间内，罗素从必要的时候对苏联动手（1945年）转变成一定程度同情苏联的处境（1962年）。在古巴导弹危机期间，罗素曾经给肯尼迪电报说其行为不顾一切，威胁到人类文明（Your action desperate. Threat to human survival. No conceivable justification. [...] End this madness...）。而对于赫鲁晓夫，罗素则希望他不要被美国的疯狂举动激怒。(1)

当时，除了严峻的古巴导弹危机，美国深陷越南战争的泥潭，越南战争造成了美国和越南大量的人员死亡。在1965年，应London School of Economics(LSE)的学生邀请，罗素前去发表演讲，那个时候罗素已经是92岁高龄了。罗素在开头就说整个世界处于战争边缘（The world is on the brink of war as it was at the time of Cuba crisis）。当时演讲在场的还有卡尔·波普尔(Karl Popper)，以及妻子Edith，还有他的助手Christopher Farley（1）。

结论

从一次大战到冷战开始，到罗素逝世，目前来看，罗素的和平主义思想是一贯的，为此他付出了很多努力。在一次大战的时候，罗素还因为反对战争被抓过，在二次大战之前，罗素就警告了新的战争的危险并且希望予以防范。在冷战的时候，罗素和爱因斯坦发表了联合宣言，这份宣言得到了非常多的科学家的联名支持，来反对战争和核武器，这些贡献都是实打实的。同时，我们也看到，罗素，可能因为对苏联体制的恐惧（罗素曾经和英国工党代表团访问过苏俄，并且见过列宁和托洛茨基，但是对苏俄和布尔什维克印象不好），罗素曾经一度主张在苏联拥有核武器前尽快击败苏联，可以预见这会带来非常巨大的灾难，考虑到苏联巨大的国土面积，如果真的继续开战，会持续很长时间，死很多人，考虑到罗素对朝鲜战争和越南战争的态度，等到这种事情真的发生后，可能罗素会后悔一辈子。然后，当核武器的威力显示出来之后，罗素和爱因斯坦他们一起反对核武器的扩散和战争，从今天的核冬天理论来看，还是很有远见的。