Overview
Bertrand Russell
(1872—1970) philosopher, journalist, and political campaigner
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Adullamites
Was the name derisively given to Robert Lowe and nearly 40 Liberal MPs who opposed Lord Russell's programme of parliamentary reform in 1866. They were dubbed by John Bright on 13 March in allusion to ...
arithmetic
The study of the natural numbers, which are 0, 1, 2, 3…and their successors. Arithmetic is characterized by Peano's postulates. Philosophical questions include the nature of our knowledge of those ...
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND)A British pressure group pledged to nuclear disarmament and to the abandonment of British nuclear weapons. CND was created in 1958 with the philosopher Bertrand Russell as President. Frustration ...
Ecclesiastical Titles Act
1851.In 1850, Pope Pius IX, encouraged by Nicholas Wiseman, announced the restoration of a Roman catholic hierarchy in England with English territorial titles, such as archbishop of Westminster. This ...
Edward Stanley, 14th Earl of Derby
(1799–1869).The longest serving of Conservative leaders. Heir to an ancient title (the main estates in south Lancashire around Knowsley), Stanley, after Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, was a Whig MP ...
Friends of the People
Was an association of radical Whig aristocrats and parliamentarians launched in 1792 by Lord John Russell, Charles Grey, and their friends. It advocated moderate parliamentary reform as a means of ...
Henry John Temple, Lord Palmerston
(1784–1865).Prime minister. A pupil of Dugald Stewart at Edinburgh, he went on to Cambridge University. He was elected in 1807 for a pocket borough in the Isle of Wight and subsequently represented ...
Hyde Park riots
1866.Soon after the death of Palmerston, Lord Russell's government introduced a second Reform Bill, extending the franchise. Opposition by discontented Liberals led to the fall of the government in ...
John Maynard Keynes
(1883–1946)English economist and philosopher. Although primarily known as an economist, Keynes produced one philosophical classic, the Treatise on Probability (1921). This develops the theory of ...
Michael Caine
1933– )British film actor, star of almost one hundred films.Born in a working-class area of south London, Maurice Micklewhite worked as a porter at Smithfield meat market before gaining acting ...
nuclear bomb
The first and only nuclear bomb to have been used in warfare was the atomic bomb, which was developed in the Manhattan Project, and exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 ...
ontology
The branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being. Recorded from the early 18th century, the word comes from modern Latin ontologia, from Greek ōn, ont− ‘being’, + the suffix −logy denoting ...
phenomenology
(fin-om-in-ol-ŏji)the study of occurrences forming part of human experiences. Concerned with describing the facts of the immediate situation, rather than speculating about causes, it helps nurses and ...
pluralism
[Th]Diversity in interpretation. Because the world cannot be reduced to a series of simple conceptual categories there will always be a range of approaches, understandings, and interpretations. In ...
reductionism
[Th]The general principle that complicated phenomena can be explained by conceptually reducing them to a set of simple variables. This is often linked to essentialist or socio‐biological approaches.
Reform Acts
The transition from the unreformed system of 1830 to full democracy in the 20th cent. was effected by seven franchise measures—the Acts of 1832, 1867, 1884, 1918, 1928, 1948, and 1969—supported by a ...
Reform League
1865–9.The Reform League was established in 1865 to press for manhood suffrage and the ballot. It collaborated with the more moderate and middle‐class Reform Union and its parliamentary spokesmen ...
Robert Lowe
(1811–92).Liberal politician. An albino and a sharply sarcastic debater, Lowe cut a distinctive political figure. Of Anglican clerical family and educated at Winchester and Oxford, as a Liberal MP he ...
Romain Rolland
(1866–1944)French novelist, dramatist, and essayist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.Born at Clamecy, Mièvre, into a well-established middle-class family, Rolland studied at the ...
Royal Society
Founded in London in 1660 to promote the discussion of science, the Royal Society is the leading academic institution for scientists. Its published Transactions shed a flood of light on scientific ...
