Foundations of Mathematics and other Logical Essays

The author of the papers collected in this volume seemed to me to combine very exceptional brilliance with very great soundness of judgment in philosophy. He was an extraordinarily clear thinker: no-one could avoid more easily than he the sort of confusions of thought to which even the best philosophers are liable, and he was capable of apprehending clearly, and observing consistently, the subtlest distinctions. He had, moreover, an exceptional power of drawing conclusions from a complicated set of facts: he could see what followed from them all taken together, or at conclusions whatever. And, with all this, he produced the impression of also possessing the soundest common sense: his subtlety and ingenuity did not lead him, as it seems to have led some philosophers, to deny obvious facts. He had, moreover, so it seemed to me, an excellent sense of proportion: he could see which problems were the most fundamental, and it was these in which he was most interested and which he was most anxious to solve. For all these reasons, and perhaps for others as well, I almost always felt, with regard to any subject which we discussed, that he understood it much better than I did, and where (as was often the case) he failed to convince me, I generally thought the probability was that he was right and I wrong, and that my failure to agree with him was due to lack of mental power on my part.