Bernard Williams 1929-2003 Bernard Williams, one of the most important and influential British philosophers of his time, died on 10 June at the age of 73. He is credited with having transformed the way moral philosophy is practised in Britain and the rest of the Anglophone world, making factors that had been thought extraneous, such as emotion, motivation and luck, part of the subject. He favoured a broad, multi-disciplinary approach to philosophy: he is quoted in a profile in the Guardian last November as saying, "Philosophy is altogether less pure now. It’s been impurified by science and social science and history. I think it’s in a much better shape than it was in the 50s." Williams was educated at Chigwell school, and read Classical Mods and Greats at Balliol College, Oxford. He did his national service with the RAF, spending a year learning to fly Spitfires in Canada (and drive fast cars as if they were fighter jets). On his return to Oxford he was appointed a fellow at All Souls College, then took up a position at New College. In 1959 he moved to University College London, then in 1964, the year his first wife Shirley was elected a Labour MP, he moved to Bedford College. In 1967 he became Knightsbridge Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge, and from 1979-1987 he served as Provost of King’s. In 1988, partly out of displeasure at Thatcherite attacks on British academic life, he moved to the University of California at Berkeley, then in 1990 he accepted the White’s Chair of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. His marriage to Shirley Williams ended in 1974, and he married Patricia Skinner the same year. He had one daughter, Rebecca, with his first wife, and two sons, Jacob and Jonathan, with his second. He sat on several public commissions, including one on obscenity and film censorship which produced a notably pragmatic, cool-headed report on an emotional issue, in November 1979. His books include: Morality (1972), Problems of the Self (1973), Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry (1978), Moral Luck (1981), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (1985), Shame and Necessity (1993), Making Sense of Humanity (1995), and his last, published in September 2002, Truth and Truthfulness. Williams was something of an iconoclast in the house of philosophy. He considered that philosophy goes wrong when it urges courses of action or ways of thought on us that ignore the realities of what humans are really like. One version of this mistake is to ascribe powers to us that we don’t have, that we perhaps couldn’t and shouldn’t have; and another is to overlook or make light of something essential to us as we really are. Philosophers "repeatedly urge us to view the world sub specie aeternitatis, but for most human purposes that is not a good species to view it under." Viewing morality as thoroughly embedded in human history and culture, Williams wanted to liberate moral philosophy from the prison of logical ahistorical analysis. He urged the neglected claims of "internal" as well as "external" reasons, and criticised both Kantianism and utilitarianism for their pretensions to objective universality. Both systems dismissed our own passions and desires and life projects in favour of a single abstract principle of morality, making us what Williams called "a servant of the world." Both also insisted that once we knew what we ought to do, there was no possibility of regret. For Williams this scanted the tragic element in life. His urging of the claims of integrity and psychology, desire and individuality, against impoverished notions of laws or consequences, enriched modern philosophy. OB   Not if you paid me... An old joke asks, "What do you say to a philosophy graduate?" The answer is – you got it – "A Big Mac and fries, please". And according to an analysis of graduate work destinations conducted for The Times Good University Guide, the stereotype of the unemployable philosopher contains a grain of truth. A snapshot of the job prospects of UK graduates from ten subjects revealed philosophers to contain the largest proportion assumed unemployed, 11%, a high matched only by art and design. Other subjects frequently mocked for their disutility fared better, with only 6% of anthropologists and 7% of sociologists out of work six months after graduation. However, it’s not all bad news. Only 25% of philosophy graduates ended up in non-graduate jobs, the lowest proportion for any subject apart from social policy, which scored the same. In contrast, one-third of American studies and anthropology graduates took on non-graduate jobs. Indeed, a relatively high proportion (62%) of philosophers went on to graduate jobs or further study, only a slightly lower proportion than graduates from psychology (65%), Iberian languages (65%) and social policy (62%). The conclusion seems to be that philosophers are an uncompromising bunch. If they can’t get a "proper" job or continue their studies, they are more inclined than their peers to sit around the house doing nothing than they are to flip burgers for money. The analysis was based on research by Abigail McKnight of the London School of Economics, conducted while she was at Warwick University’s Institute for Employment Research.   New body in shape The new British Philosophical Association is now up and running. The BPA was formally launched in July at the 2003 "Joint Session", the largest annual conference in Britain for professional philosophers, held this year in Belfast. Until the formation of the BPA in October 2002, British academic philosophy lacked a single representative body. The BPA’s aims are to promote the study of philosophy, particularly within higher education but also in the wider community; to assist professional philosophers to carry out their teaching, scholarship and research in philosophy; to foster interest in and appreciation of philosophy in the wider community; and to express the views of the community of professional philosophers in Britain to relevant bodies, both within higher education and beyond. The BPA replaces the National Committee for Philosophy and the Standing Conference of Philosophers, which between them represented the profession. Membership of the BPA is open to anyone qualified to hold an academic position in philosophy, philosophy departments and learned bodies. The BPA holds its inaugural conference in London on the afternoon of Friday 24 October, where Onora O’Neill and Robert Audi will be the speakers. The conference will be followed by the BPA’s first AGM. www.britphil.ac.uk   A C is ace, see Compiled from data from Nielson Bookscan, the most authoritative source of sales figures for books in Britain, the Observer’s one-off philosophy chart of 8 June showed A C Grayling – philosopher, biographer, columnist, Booker prize judge and all-round Renaissance man – to be the master of the popular philosophy book. 1. What Is Good? The search for the best way to live, A C Grayling (Weidenfeld) 2. Taking The Red Pill, Glenn Yeffeth and David Gerrold (Summersdale) 3. Looking for Spinoza: Joy, Sorrow and the Feeling Brain, Antonio Damasio (Heinemann) 4. The Meaning of Things, A C Grayling (Phoenix) 5. Meditations, Marcus Aurelius (Phoenix)   Georg Henrik von Wright 1916-2003 The great Finnish philosopher Georg Henrik von Wright died in Helsinki on 16 July 16 at the age of 87. Von Wright is known both for his more technical work in logic and the philosophy of science and for his later work on ethics and the humanities. Von Wright was born in Helsinki on 14 June 1916. After a childhood troubled by ill-health he enrolled as a student at the University of Helsinki in 1934. He was clearly a gifted student, and his tutor and mentor Eino Klaika said that his exam paper on Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus helped him understand the work better. Von Wright later confided that neither of them understood it properly at the time. Von Wright was strongly influenced by the logical positivism of the Vienna Circle without ever fully joining the intellectual movement. Another important early influence was the humanism of Jakob Burckhardt. Von Wright defended the western humanist ideals which he thought were being eroded as part of a general decline in western society. He was never the kind of optimistic humanist who believed in the ability of science to solve all our problems or that progress was inevitable. The Anschluss of March 1938 precipitated von Wright’s first move to Cambridge, as he was unable to carry on working in Vienna. Perhaps the most important day of his life was 31 May 1941, when he both published his doctoral thesis and married Maria Elisabeth von Troil. A mere seven years later he succeeded Wittgenstein as professor of philosophy at Cambridge. He and Wittgenstein became good friends, despite some initial friction, and after Wittgenstein’s death in 1951, von Wright took the difficult decision to return to Finland. He was also appointed as one of the executors of Wittgenstein’s literary estate Of his many published works, his own favourite was The Varieties Of Goodness (1963). The best known was probably Explanation And Understanding (1971) while his An Essay in Deontic Logic (1968) gave a name and form to the formal study of the application of logic to ethical concepts. Von Wright was inducted into philosophy’s "hall of fame" when a volume on his work was published in the prestigious Library of Living Philosophers in 1989. Only 29 philosophers have had this honour since the series begun in 1939.   New online degree Spam emails have been offering dubious online qualifications for some time. Now, however, you can earn a bona fide bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the American Public University. The APU is a member of the American Public University System, which also includes the American Military University and American Community College. It is accredited by the Distance Education and Training Council, which recently approved its bachelor of arts in philosophy program. "An online bachelor’s in philosophy is not very common, so we’re pleased to be able to offer a program that working students, or students in remote locations, can take that may enhance their professional or intellectual lives," said Robin Freed, chair of the department of liberal arts and social sciences. In addition to foundation courses in western thought, courses available include environmental philosophy, ethics in intelligence, studies in Chinese thought, readings in military philosophy, and ethical and moral dimensions of the Holocaust. The philosophy degree is also available through American Military University, APU’s sister school in the American Public University System. www.apus.edu   Fallen fellow Philosophy professor Peter Smith has resigned his fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge, after the Mail on Sunday published a two-page story alleging he had a rather different second job: reviewing prostitutes for an online escort agency. Although this has no affect on his work, he was supposed to have used his college rooms for the trysts. The fellowship, which commands a good salary and privileges such as the rooms and meals, is separate from his job as a lecturer in philosophy, which he has kept. Prof. Smith, who is married, specialises in logic and in the relation between mathematical models and the physical world. He is a former editor of the prestigious journal, Analysis.   From BA to DJ From January, radio listeners in San Franciso are to have their very own philosophy talk show, imaginatively called "Philosophy Talk". Due to the magic of the Internet, however, the show can be heard around the world from the host station’s website, www.kalw.org. A pilot of the show, hosted by John Perry and Ken Taylor of the Stanford University philosophy department, was broadcast in August. (See Straw Poll, p10). Perry and Taylor are both well respected philosophers. Perry is best known for his work on personal identity and self-consciousness, while Taylor’s work has focused on theories of meaning and reference. Taylor told TPM that "the purpose of Philosophy Talk: The Program that Questions Everything – Except Your Intelligence, besides being to make Perry and Taylor rich and famous, is to enliven public discourse in America, and hopefully throughout the English speaking world, once we get up and running.  "We intend to discuss issues of broad social relevance like cloning, lying, terrorism, abortion, euthanasia and other end-of-life issues. But we also intend to discuss both issues of more enduring philosophical significance and quandaries raised by contemporary science. Can machines really be made to think? What is consciousness? What happened before the Big Bang? (And what will happen after I finally do get a big bang?) What is space, anyway? "We intend to do all this in an entertaining,  light-hearted, accessible, but also deep and probing way. "We’ll typically have one or two guests on the show, who actually know something – often philosophers, but just as often not. Unlike your typical interview program in which the hosts basically suck up to the guests and try to make them look good, we’ll bring an air of constructive scepticism to our interviews. Plus, we’ll try hard not to be biased, slanted, one-sided. But we will be relentlessly questioning." Taylor adds, "I really do think analytically inclined philosophers have to get back into the game of being public intellectuals." The programme has received modest financial support from the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association.   Continuum continues growth The "big four" publishers of philosophy in Britain are feeling the breath of an expansionist competitor down their necks. Continuum International Publishing has just acquired Thoemmes Press, an independent publisher founded in 1991 by Rudi Thoemmes which specialises in large-scale, high-cost reference works, purchased almost exclusively by libraries. This is the latest in a long line of acquisitions for Continuum, the most significant in philosophy being that of Athlone two years ago. Continuum has only been on the scene since 1999 when chairman Philip Sturrock bought out the Cassell academic and religious lists from Orion and merged them with New York publisher Continuum. Discussing the acquisition, Continuum’s academic publishing director Anthony Haynes (above) said, "We’ve now got five editors commissioning in [philosophy]. How many publishers can match that?" He said the group would be building from its current base, which is strong on European philosophy, to branch out into more analytic philosophy, text books, biographies and titles aimed at the general public. If the pace of expansion continues, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge and Blackwell could well find a fifth member joining their elite club.   She’s a jolly good fellow Professor Sarah J Broadie from the University of St Andrews is the only philosopher to be elected among the 35 new fellows of the British Academy this year. The British Academy is the learned society of the humanities and social sciences, established by royal charter in 1902. Election to the academy is recognition of outstanding scholarly achievement. The philosophy section of the academy has 44 fellows, with a further three whose primary affiliation is to a different section. Remarkably, Prof Broadie is the first female academic from the University of St Andrews to be elected a fellow of the academy. She specialises in classical philosophy and her books include Ethics with Aristotle (1991) and, as Sarah Waterlow, Nature, Change, and Agency in Aristotle’s Physics (1984).