Ray Monk (born 15 February 1957) is a British biographer who is renowned for his biographies of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Bertrand Russell, and J. Robert Oppenheimer. He is emeritus professor of philosophy at the University of Southampton, where he taught in various capacities from 1992 to 2018.
Biography
Monk graduated with an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of York in 1979. Later he obtained an MLitt from the University of Oxford.
He won the 1990 John Llewellyn Rhys Prize and the 1991 Duff Cooper Prize for his acclaimed biography of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Ludwig Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius. His two-volume biography of Bertrand Russell appeared in 1996 and 2001. His biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer was published in 2012.
Since 2012 he has occasionally written for the New Statesman, contributing articles on philosophers and on veganism."Ray Monk on veganism in the New Statesman". University of Southampton.
In 2015 he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Works Two excerpts from this book are reprinted in F. A. Flowers III and Ian Ground, eds. Portraits of Wittgenstein: Abridged Edition. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. The excerpts are titled "The Laboratory for Self-Destruction" (pp. 18-38) and "Bartley's Wittgenstein and the Coded Remarks" (pp. 129-134). Bertrand Russell: The Spirit of Solitude 1872–1921. London: Vintage Books, 1996. Russell. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997. Bertrand Russell: The Ghost of Madness 1921–1970. London: Vintage Books, 2001. "Philosophical Biography: The Very Idea". In pp. 3-15. How to Read Wittgenstein. London: Granta Books, 2005.
Inside the Centre: The Life of J. Robert Oppenheimer. London: Jonathan Cape, 2012; Robert Oppenheimer: A Life Inside the Center. New York: Doubleday, 2013.
"Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Sketch of His Life" (chapter in A Companion to Wittgenstein, edited by Hans-Johann Glock and John Hyman. Wiley-Blackwell, 2017)
References
External links Home page Philosophy Bites podcast interview with Ray Monk on Philosophy and Biography WGBY audio recording of lecture "Philosophy Circa 1905" Leading, contemporary biographers Hermione Lee & Ray Monk and director Stephen Frears debate whether all biographies are fiction