Philosophers and Friends: Reminiscences of Seventy Years in Philosophy

148 Pages·1996·15.19 MB·English

by  Dorothy Emmet (auth.)

PHILOSOPHERS AND FRIENDS
Also by Dorothy Emmet and published by Palgrave Macmillan
THE EFFECTIVENESS OF CAUSES
FUNCTION, PURPOSE AND POWERS
THE MORAL PRISM
THE NATURE OF METAPHYSICAL THINKING
THE PASSAGE OF NATURE
THE ROLE OF THE UNREALISABLE
RULES, ROLES AND RELA TlONS
SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHICAL
ANALYSIS (edited with Alasdair MacIntyre)
WHITEHEAD'S PHILOSOPHY OF ORGANISM
Philosophers
and Friends
Reminiscences of
Seventy Years in Philosophy
Dorothy Emmet
Professor Emeritus in Philosophy
University of Manchester
Honorary Fellow of
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Fellow Emeritus of
Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge
Foreword by Bryan Magee
~
MACMILLAN
© Dorothy Emmet 1996
Foreword © Maanillan Press Ltd 1996
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1s t edition 1996
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of
this publication may be made without written permission.
No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or
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issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court
Road, London W1P 9HE.
Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil
claims for damages.
First published 1996 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS
and London
Companies and representatives
throughout the world
ISBN 978-1-349-14217-0 ISBN 978-1-349-14215-6 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-14215-6
A catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library.
10987654321
05 04 03 02 01 00 99 98 97 96
To my friends who are also philosophers
Niemals bin ich allein.
Viele, die vor mir lebten,
und fort von mir streb ten,
webten,
webten,
an meinem Sein.
Rainer Maria Rilke.
I am never alone.
Many who lived before me
and many who strove away from me were
woven,
woven,
in my being.
Contents
Page
Foreword by Bryan Magee ix
Preface xiii
1 Introduction 1
2 Philosophy in Oxford in the 1920s:
H.A Prichard and R.G. Collingwood 3
3 AD. Lindsay: Philosophy and Moral Democracy 13
4 Philosophy Among the South Wales Miners 31
5 AN. Whitehead in Cambridge, Mass. 34
6 Politics and Philosophy in the 1930s:
John Macmurray and Reinhold Niebuhr 50
7 Samuel Alexander in Manchester 62
8 Philosophy in Manchester: Religion and
Metaphysics. Michael Polanyi 74
9 Philosophy in Manchester: Theories in the
Social Sciences. Alasdair MacIntyre and
Max Gluckman 85
10 Retirement with Philosophers and Friends in Cambridge:
Richard Braithwaite and Margaret Masterman 102
11 Retrospect and Prospect 115
Notes 123
Index 127
List of Plates
1 Dorothy Emmet and Brian Magee in conversation at her 90th
birthday party. Reproduced with the permission of D.H. Mellor.
2 A.D. Lindsay. Reproduced with the permission of Drusilla Scott.
3 A.N. Whitehead. Reproduced with the permission of the British
Academy.
4 Samuel Alexander. Photograph by F.W. Schmidt. Reproduced
with the permission of the University of Manchester.
viii
Foreword
Many casual music lovers listen to music by none but the greatest
composers. But serious music lovers are bound to find themselves
exploring the work of lesser-known figures. Not infrequently some
of this turns out to be better than its reputation, and may come to the
fore afresh, and a reputation is then revised. The rest may continue
to be seen, perhaps, as something less than great - but, even so, it is
often full of talent, and capable of giving a great deal of pleasure, and
will certainly add variety and interest to what would otherwise be a
narrow diet. It provides us with a setting in which the greatest
composers can be seen in better perspective. Without it the art of
music would have nothing like the range and richness that it does.
I suppose something similar to this must be true in most important
fields of human activity. Certainly it is in philosophy. The generally
acknowledged 'greats' among philosophers, from Plato to
Wittgenstein, are surprisingly few in number - I am talking of those
of previous generations whose work one would unavoidably have
to know if one were teaching philosophy at a university today. I
doubt whether an honest reckoning could bring the number to more
than about two dozen - and they (unlike the composers) would be
spread over a period of nearly two and a half thousand years. Yet at
every period there have been lesser figures, often many of them,
whose work is of interest to the serious lover of philosophy,
sometimes for a single insight, sometimes because it sparkles with
many if smaller gems, or because it influenced one of the greater
figures, or because it is well written - there can be anyone of a
number of sufficient reasons. Sometimes a new generation of readers
will perceive that one of these has more to be said for him than has
been realized, and his reputation will be re-evaluated - he may even
be added to the company of the elect. And the rest will continue to
deepen our appreciation of the past, and of the problem-situations
out of which work of greater genius arose.
The supreme attraction of this book by Dorothy Emmet is that she
brings alive, through the story of her personal connection with them,
some of the most interesting philosophers of this kind who appeared
in Britain during the half-century between the 1920s and the 1970s.
She has good anecdotes to tell about some of them, and the stories
ix