William de Burgh (philosopher) explained

William de Burgh
Birth Name:William George de Burgh
Birth Date:24 October 1866
Birth Place:Wandsworth, England
Death Place:Toller Porcorum, England
Spouse:[1]
Alma Mater:Merton College, Oxford
Discipline:Philosophy
Workplaces:University of Reading
Notable Works:Legacy of the Ancient World (1924)

William George de Burgh (; ; 24 October 1866 – 27 August 1943) was an English philosopher who was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Career

Born on 24 October 1866 in Wandsworth, de Burgh was educated at Winchester and Merton College, Oxford. At the latter he obtained a first in Literæ Humaniores ('Greats") in 1889.[2] He was then briefly an assistant master at Derby School, then a tutor at Toynbee Hall, and then a University Extension lecturer in Stepney.[3]

From 1896 de Burgh was a lecturer in Greek and Latin at the University Extension College at Reading. This being an 'extension college' of the University of Oxford's Christ Church college that was formally opened in 1892, and intended to provide part-time adult education.[4]

In 1907 the College at Reading became a University College (a college that delivered university-level teaching though it did not hold irs own degree-awarding power)[5] still affiliated with Christ Church.[6] And in that year de Burgh became Professor of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Letters. His lectureship in Classics was relinquished in 1910, but both of these two latter posts he retained until he retired in 1934.

A. E. Taylor describes de Burgh as, after the first few years, devoting his life to the "making of a University College into a University, an independent centre of an education in ‘living well’, in the full Aristotelian sense."[7] Knox and Creffield record that whilst the credit for Reading becoming a university in 1926 "is generally ascribed to W. M. Childs" and "the acquisition of the necessary funds was Childs's work, the academic statesmanship was de Burgh's."

A committed Anglican, de Burgh attempted to build a distinctly Christian philosophical argument for the truth of the gospel, a project that, as Knox and Creffield note, was "unfashionable at a time when protestant theologians were disparaging reason and when few philosophers were interested in religion,"[8]

W.G. de Burgh was, as Geoff Dumbreck notes, "deeply influenced by the classics and used ideas from ancient Greek philosophy to address modern philosophical problems."[9] He was also concerned that "the focus on the scientific method left little room" for what Alan P. F. Sell refers to as the "moral-cum-spiritual dimension."[10] His main target being, as Dumbrek notes, the logical positivists,

He died on 27 August 1943 in Toller Porcorum, Dorset.

Works

References

Further reading

Notes and References

  1. Web site: 2020-08-15 . William George De Burgh - The Gifford Lectures . 2024-03-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200815165516/https://www.giffordlectures.org/lecturers/william-george-de-burgh . 15 August 2020 .
  2. Web site: de Burgh, William George, (24 Oct. 1866–27 Aug. 1943) . subscription . 2024-03-01 . WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO . 2007 . en . 10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u223247.
  3. Book: Sell, Alan P. F. . The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy . 2006 . Continuum . 978-0-19-975469-4 . Grayling . A.C. . 1 . en . de Burgh, William George . 10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001 . Alan P. F. Sell . Goulder . Naomi . Pyle . Andrew . https://books.google.com/books?id=uL3UAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA223 . subscription.
  4. Web site: Mcleod . Faye . 2022-05-16 . Oxford and the Birth of Reading University . 2024-03-01 . Archives and Manuscripts at the Bodleian Library . en-GB.
  5. Web site: Definition of UNIVERSITY COLLEGE . 2024-03-01 . . en . 2 British : a college lacking the right to confer its own degrees and for this purpose attached to but physically separate from a university.
  6. Web site: Salter . Ruth . 2016-06-24 . Before we were the University of Reading . 2024-03-01 . READING HISTORY . en.
  7. Taylor . A. E. . Alfred Edward Taylor . 1943 . William George de Burgh, 1866–1943 . . 29 . 375–376 . Internet Archive.
  8. Knox . T. M. . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Creffield . C. A. . C. A. . Creffield . 2004 . 8 . 796–797 . en . Burgh, William George de (1866–1943), philosopher. . 10.1093/ref:odnb/32766 . Thomas Malcolm Knox . registration . Internet Archive.
  9. Dumbreck . Geoff . 2011-11-23 . Alan P.F. Sell, Four Philosophical Anglicans: W.G. De Burgh, W.R. Matthews, O.C. Quick, H.A. Hodges (Farnham, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010), pp. x+327. ISBN 978 1 4094 0059 2. . . en . . 10 . 1 . 130–131 . 10.1017/S1740355311000246 . 147534028 . 1740-3553 . The author of The Legacy of the Ancient World, de Burgh was deeply influenced by the classics and used ideas from ancient Greek philosophy to address modern philosophical problems. He was concerned that a focus on the scientific method left little room for the ‘moral-cum-spiritual dimension’ (p. 22). His main target was the logical positivists, who had missed the Aristotelian point that ‘the human being's end is not simply to live, but to live well’ (p. 26)..
  10. Book: Sell, Alan P. F. . https://books.google.com/books?id=oEn7DwAAQBAJ&dq=%E2%80%98=%22moral-cum-spiritual%20dimension%22&pg=PA22 . Four Philosophical Anglicans: W. G. DeBurgh, W. R. Matthews, O. C. Quick, H. A. Hodges . 2015-03-20 . . 978-1-7252-3540-3 . 22 . en . William George de Burgh (1866-1943).
  11. Gomme . A. W. . Arnold Wycombe Gomme . November 1924 . More About the Legacy - The Legacy of the Ancient World. By W. G. De Burgh. Pp. xvi + 462. London: Macdonald and Evans, 1924. 15s. net. . . en . 38 . 7–8 . 177–178 . 10.1017/S0009840X00040373 . 1464-3561 . 700822. 162486896 . registration . JSTOR.
  12. Ewing . A. C. . A. C. Ewing . 1937 . Review of Towards a Religious Philosophy . . 38 . 152 . 436–440 . 10.1093/jts/os-XXXVIII.152.436 . 23956617 . 0022-5185 . subscription . JSTOR.
  13. Web site: 2020-08-14 . From Morality to Religion - The Gifford Lectures . 2024-03-01 . https://web.archive.org/web/20200814022946/https://www.giffordlectures.org/books/morality-religion . 14 August 2020 .
  14. Barker . H. . 1939 . Review of From Morality to Religion. . Mind . 48 . 190 . 221–227 . 10.1093/mind/XLVIII.190.221 . 2250861 . 0026-4423 . subscription . JSTOR.
  15. Webb . Clement C. J. . Clement Charles Julian Webb . 1939 . Review of Knowledge of the Individual . Philosophy . 14 . 56 . 490–491 . 10.1017/S0031819100027571 . 3746335 . 170131034 . 0031-8191 . registration . JSTOR.
  16. Walsh . W. H. . W. H. Walsh . 1949 . Review of The Life of Reason . Philosophy . 24 . 91 . 376–379 . 10.1017/S0031819100007701 . 3747184 . 170273827 . 0031-8191 . registration . JSTOR.

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