| Sir Geoffrey Warnock | |
| Office: | Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford |
| Term Start: | 1981 |
| Term End: | 1985 |
| 1Blankname: | Chancellor |
| 1Namedata: | The Earl of Stockton |
| Predecessor: | Sir Rex Richards |
| Successor: | The Lord Neill of Bladen |
| Birth Name: | Geoffrey James Warnock |
| Birth Date: | 1923 8, df=y |
| Birth Place: | Leeds, England |
| Death Place: | Axford, Wiltshire, England |
| Known For: | Philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University |
| Alma Mater: | Winchester College New College, Oxford |
| Children: | 5 |
Sir Geoffrey James Warnock (16 August 19238 October 1995)[1] was an English philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.[2] Before his knighthood (in the 1986 New Year Honours), he was commonly known as G. J. Warnock.
Warnock was born at Neville House, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, West Yorkshire, to James Warnock (1880–1953), OBE, a general practitioner from Northern Ireland who had been a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps,[3] and Kathleen (née Hall; 1890–1979). The Warnocks later lived at Grade II-listed[4] Pull Croft, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire).[5] [6]
Warnock was educated at Winchester College. He then served with the Irish Guards until 1945, before entering New College, Oxford, with a deferred classics scholarship. At New College, he read for a degree in PPE, graduating with a first in 1948.[7] His tutors during his studies included Isaiah Berlin and H.L.A. Hart.
He was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1949. After spending three years at Brasenose College, he returned to Magdalen as a Fellow and tutor in philosophy. In 1970, he was elected to Principal of Hertford College, Oxford (1971–1988), where there is now a society and student house named after him.[8] He was also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1981 to 1985.
Warnock, with co-editor J. O. Urmson, prepared for posthumous 1961 publication the Philosophical Papers of their friend, and fellow Oxford linguistic philosopher, J. L. Austin.[9] Warnock also reconstructed Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (1962) from manuscript notes.[10]
Warnock married Mary Wilson, a fellow philosopher of St Hugh's College, Oxford, and later Baroness Warnock, in 1949. They had two sons and three daughters.[11] [12] He retired to live near Marlborough, Wiltshire, in 1988 and died of degenerative lung disease in 1995[13] at Axford in Wiltshire.
Books
Papers/book chapters
For a more complete list of Warnock's works see his PhilPapers entry