“I like her very much—she has very good brains.”: Dorothy Wrinch’s Influence on Bertrand Russell

Abstract

In this chapter I critically examine the hitherto neglected influence that Dorothy Wrinch had on her teacher, friend, and informal thesis adviser, Bertrand Russell, and the puzzling fact that Russell never cited Wrinch’s mathematical papers on Principia Mathematica. Wrinch never reshaped Russell’s general outlook; indeed, Wrinch adopted as her own many of Russell’s 1911–1919 views about logic, philosophy, science, and their relationships that are characteristic of logic-centered twentieth-century analytic philosophy. Still, the influence was not just in one direction, from teacher to student, but also ran the other way. And while Wrinch’s own life and ideas have enjoyed far more attention in recent literature, most historians of philosophy have, for too long, largely overlooked how Wrinch influenced Russell. Here I critically discuss how Wrinch influenced Russell and tell a more well-rounded story of mutual influence and collaboration.

A draft of this paper was written while an Izaak Walton Killam Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy at the University of Alberta. That draft was presented at the 2021 workshop, Feminism and Philosophical Women in Russell’s Circle. Thanks to that workshop’s participants and to its audience for their critical feedback, and to Alexander Klein for co-organizing that workshop. Thanks also to Bernard Linsky for helpful comments on the piece and to Gregory Landini for helpful discussion of the piece.