What makes you think I haven't spent time with Russell, my good man? B.R. was incontrovertibly a mathematical genius, and well-known as a logical positivist in his day, but there's a reason he's not widely known as a "great" philosopher today: his dogged adherence to scientism, the idea that the scientific method is the only means by which truth -- any truth, moral or physical -- can be determined. As for his criticism of Descartes, Russell's assertion that "thoughts exist" is simple sophistry, not philosophy; to say that self-awareness does not infer self makes no logical sense, since awareness is a property of self. Awareness can no more exist without self than temperature can exist without matter. One might as well say "temperature exists". The truth, of course, is that temperature infers matter; no matter, no temperature; no self, no self-awareness. Thus Russell's denial of the "I" in Descartes' dictum is tantamount to saying that "nothing exists", a statement which renders any discussion impossible and is, frankly, sophomoric bullshit. (Pardon my French.)