In An Inquiry Into Meaning and Truth, Bertrand Russell returns to philosophy after a long period of writing about education, religion and marriage. Investigating how we can be justified in what we know and how we can reconcile knowledge of the physical world with immediate sensory knowledge, Russell sets out to reconcile the various aspects of his thought since his early logicist period―the view that mathematical truths are ultimately logical truths.

Russell’s goal is to stress-test empiricism in light of contemporary developments in logic and language or, as Russell himself succinctly puts it, “to combine a general outlook akin to Hume’s with the methods that have grown out of modern logic”. His quest combines three strands: metaphysical, epistemological and linguistic.

Both a fascinating insight into Russell’s evolving views and the continuity of his thinking over the years, it also foreshadows many future debates which came to occupy centre stage within English-speaking philosophy: debates about realism and anti-realism, the viability of pragmatism as a philosophical theory and the perennial opposition between holism and atomism.

This Routledge Classics edition includes a new Foreword by Pascal Engel, placing Russell’s book in helpful philosophical context.