Kevin C. Klement

Bertrand Russell:
Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy

In early 2009, I began a project to make Russell's Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy available free online. I began with a rather low quality OCRed scan of the 1920 Allen & Unwin printing, which I cleaned up by re-adding formatting, correcting mistakes, inserting mathematical symbols, and so on. Several members of the Russell-l mailing list helped as well. Kenneth Blackwell, of the Bertrand Russell Archives/Research Center, McMaster University, contributed in a major way to the project by not only error-checking the bulk of the edition but also comparing it against Russell’s handwritten manuscript, which turned up a number of errors in all previously published editions.

New corrections to the text (at least those of any significance) are marked in green in most of the editions below (except the .mobi version, which does not support color). The edition also contains a list of changes as an appendix. It is still possible, indeed likely, that errors remain in this edition because of mistakes in the OCR, formatting errors introduced afterwards, or discrepancies due to unknown corrections made in later printings (including a half-sheet of “entirely trivial” corrections Russell sent the publisher for the 1930 printing, which may or may not be included here). The result is nevertheless an edition which is likely the most correct version of Russell’s book available anywhere. And it’s all free. Nonetheless, if you discover any errors or additional discrepancies, please email me at klement <at> philos <dot> umass <dot> edu.

My version is available in many different sizes and formats. Most can be saved by right clicking on the link and choose “Save Target/Link as …”. The HTML version can be saved from within your browser when you navigate to it, or you can download the .zip file below.

ZIP file containing L^AT_EX source
(used to create the PDFs, 227.4 KB)

ZIP file containing HTML source along with images
(the Web version above, also used to create ePub/.mobi versions through calibre, 173.1 KB)

Plain text version (.txt)
(possibly useful for doing textual analysis, etc., 409.1 KB)

If you have another favorite format you'd like me to try to create, let me know, although the HTML format can likely be easily converted as is (to, e.g., Word format or RTF, etc.)

Bertrand Russell’s Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy is in the Public Domain.

This typesetting (including HTML and L^AT_EX source code) and list of changes are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.