Abstract

The Bertrand Russell Research Centre in 2010 will host a conference to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica.The publication in 1910 of the first of the three volumes of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica was a landmark in the development of logic, the foundations of mathematics, and the application of logic in philosophy. The rapid development of these fields in the two decades after 1910 owes perhaps more to Principia Mathematica than to any other work. Subsequently, however, its lessons learnt in different ways by different people, it becomes more difficult to determine exactly what the world owes to this gigantic piece of work. Daunting both for its size and its technical difficulty, the book is now known more by reputation than by detailed study. Russell himself maintained, no doubt with some exaggeration, that he knew of only six people besides the authors who had read the entire three volumes. He remained dissatisfied with the foundations of the work and attempted a major revision (this time without Whitehead's help) in a second edition published in 1925–27, which further complicated its historical legacy.