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A. C. Ewing

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A. C. Ewing
Alfred Cyril Ewing by Walter Stoneman (1956)
Born
Alfred Cyril Ewing

(1899-05-11)11 May 1899
Leicester, England
Died14 May 1973(1973-05-14) (aged 74)
Manchester, England
Alma materUniversity of Oxford
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic idealism
Epistemic coherentism
InstitutionsUniversity of Cambridge
Main interests
Epistemology
Notable ideas
Contemporary formulation of the coherence theory of justification

Alfred Cyril Ewing FBA (/ˈjuːɪŋ/; 11 May 1899 – 14 May 1973), was an English philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge. He was a prolific writer who made contributions to Kant scholarship, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and the philosophy of religion.

Biography

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Alfred Ewing was born in Leicester, England, on 11 May 1899, the only child of Emma and H. F. Ewing. He was educated at Wyggeston Grammar School.[1][2]

From his entrance to University College, Oxford, Ewing's early academic career was, as Russell Grice remarks,[a] one of "almost unparalleled brilliance."[4] Firsts in Classical Moderations and, in 1920, 'Greats' were followed by a Bishop Fraser Scholarship[b] at Oriel College in 1920 and a Senior Demyship at Magdalen College in 1921[4] He was awarded the John Locke Scholarship in Mental Philosophy (now the John Locke Prize) the same year.

In 1923, Ewung was amongst the first Oxford students to be awarded a DPhil,[5] his (revised) thesis being published as Kant’s Treatment of Causality (1924). He served as a lecturer at Oxford 1924 –1925,[6] He was awarded the Green Prize in Moral Philosophy in 1926.[7] An expanded version of the essay for which he won the same was published as The Morality of Punishment (1929), with a short introduction by W. D. Ross.[8]

After holding temporary positions at Michigan University (in the summer session of 1926) and Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne (in 1927), he served as a lecturer in philosophy at University College, Swansea from 1927 until 1931).[6]

In 1931 he was appointed University Lecturer in Moral Science at Cambridge.[2] (A. J. Ayer describes him being as being 'imported' to teach the history of philosophy)[9] He was awarded, the Cambridge D.Litt in 1933,[7] at the remarkably early age of 34.[10]

The following year, Ewing published his extensive study Idealism: A Critical Survey, which was reviewed favourably by T. E. Jessop.[11] And offers an early characterisation of a 'traditional account' of coherentist epistemic justification.[12]

The late 1930s saw the publication of "Meaninglessness"[13] and 'The Linguistic Theory'[14][15] two "powerfully argued" papers that, Brand Blanshard contends, "must have contributed much to the disintegration of positivism."[16]

He served as president of the Aristotelian Society from 1941 to 1942, and was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1941.[7] He delivered the latter's annual Henriette Hertz philosophical lecture the same year.[17][18] Two visiting professorships took him to Princeton and Northwestern University in 1949.[19]

At Cambridge where, as Ayer contends, Ewing was "not well treated," he was "eventually" made a reader in 1954.[9] And, after many years of lecturing for the university, he was finally elected a fellow of Jesus College in 1962,[9] As Ayer, notes. Ewing "was an able philosopher, a good scholar and a prolific writer" but one that "never caught the idiom . . largely foisted on Cambridge in the 1930s by Ludwig Wittgenstein.".[9]

After holding a visiting position in Colorado in 1963, he retired from Cambridge in 1966 with an Honorary Fellowship from Jesus College. and moved to Manchester. But in 1967 he took a visiting position at San Francisco State College[c] and in 1971 such a post at Delaware. He continued to write, working to complete Value and Reality (1973) which was published posthumously.[21]

Ewing died in Manchester, England, on 14 May 1973.[2] He left his papers, and Bernd Goebel reports, his body, to the University of Manchester.[d]

Ayer recalls teasing the devout and "unswervingly honest" Ewing with the question of what he was most looking forward to in the afterlife, His immediate response being that “God will tell me whether there are synthetic a priori propositions."[9][23]

Blanshard paid tribute to Ewing in both a journal obituary, and within his own Library of Living Philosophers Festschrift.[24][16]

Thomas Hurka notes that "Grice’s fine obituary of him is poignant, describing a man whose work was not appreciated at its true worth because of a change in philosophical fashion—and the arrogance of those who made the change—and irrelevant facts about his personality" but "that as parts of moral philosophy return to views like Ewing’s his contributions are becoming better known."[21]

Philosophical work

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Ewing was a defender of traditional metaphysics (as opposed to post-modern ethics) and developed what has been termed an "analytic idealism".[25]

He was one of the foremost analysts of the concept "good", and a distinguished contributor to justificatory theorizing about punishment.[citation needed]

Ewing was critical of the verification theory of meaning.[13] He held the view that probability was not a quality of a thing, preferring to understand it in relative terms. Any probability statement without implicit or explicit reference to the relevant data upon which probability is based was considered meaningless.[13]

Additionally he viewed self-contradictions to be meaningful. He said that although there is "a sense in which it seems reasonable to say that all self-contradictory sentences are meaningless" in that we cannot "combine" the meaningful constituents of self-contradictions in thought, there is also a sense in which they are meaningful. He therefore took issue with the thesis that "we cannot think the meaning of a self-contradictory statement as a whole, though we know the meaning of the separate words". A self-contradiction, according to Ewing, proposes that two ideas can be combined into one, which is a proposition. If self-contradictions were meaningless and a "mere set of words" then we would not be able to investigate or say if they were wrong, and it is this proposition that they can be combined which makes a self-contradictory utterance meaningful.[13]

Ewing distinguished between two forms of philosophical analysis. The first is "what the persons who make a certain statement usually intend to assert" and the second "the qualities, relations and species of continuants mentioned in the statement". As an illustration he takes the statement "I see a tree", this statement could be analysed in terms what the everyday person intends when they say this or it could be analysed metaphysically by asserting representationalism.[26]

Works

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Books

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Papers/book chapters

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Notes

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  1. ^ G. R. or Russell Grice who, as a research student in moral philosophy at Churchill College. worked under Ewing in the first half of the 1960s.[3]
  2. ^ A scholarship intended to provide funds for a graduate wishing to study for a year after taking their BA, provided for by a benefaction from Agnes Fraser in memory of her husband James Fraser, the former Bishop of Manchester.
  3. ^ The latter visit being one recalled by Rudolph H. Weingartner.[20]
  4. ^ "Er hatte bestimmt, dass sein Leichnam der Universität Manchester zu Lehr- und Forschungszwecken zur Verfügung gestellt würde"[22]

References

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  1. ^ "Papers of Alfred Cyril Ewing - Archives Hub". archiveshub.jisc.ac.uk. Retrieved 9 February 2024.
  2. ^ a b c Mander, W. J. (2006), "Ewing, Alfred Cyril", The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy, Continuum, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001/acref-9780199754694-e-687, retrieved 28 December 2023
  3. ^ Brown, S. (2006). "Grice, Geoffrey Russell" In The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy. : Continuum.
  4. ^ a b Grice 1975, pp. 499–500.
  5. ^ "A celebration of the DPhil Centenary 1919 – 2019"
  6. ^ a b Anon (1969) [1942]. "Ewing, A. C.". In Runes, Dagobert D. (ed.). Who's who in philosophy. New York, Greenwood Press. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-8371-2095-9 – via Internet Archive.
  7. ^ a b c "Ewing, Alfred Cyril, (1899–14 May 1973), retired as Reader in Philosophy, University of Cambridge (1954–66); Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge, 1962 (Hon. Fellow, 1966)". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u154318. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
  8. ^ a b Broad, C. D. (1930). "Review of The Morality of Punishment" (PDF). Mind. 39 (155): 347–353. ISSN 0026-4423. JSTOR 2250204.
  9. ^ a b c d e Ayer, A. J. (Alfred Jules) (1985). More of my life. Oxford [Oxfordshire]; New York : Oxford University Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-0-19-281878-2 – via Internet Archive.
  10. ^ Grice 1975, p. 500.
  11. ^ a b Jessop, T. E. (1935). "Review of Idealism: A Critical Survey". Mind. 44 (174): 216. ISSN 0026-4423 – via JSTOR. Idealism has a way of rousing scorn in its critics, but in this long critique there is never . . . a single argument that simply scores a point. . . . It is the most fair-minded as well as the most searching critique of certain aspects of British idealism that has been given to us. The chief reason for all this lies, of course, in the author's . . .integrity, but it is natural also to suppose that his former belief in idealism left him with an inalienable appreciation of its merits. For if his book is a palinode it is also a tribute to what it recants and refutes. . . . the genius of the book lies . . . in the shape and stuff of its elaborate argumentation. Every problem is analyzed with a remarkable versatility and pertinacity of criticism ... It is a fine achievement, which should survive the fashions of the day.
  12. ^ Olsson, Erik (2023), Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.), "Coherentist Theories of Epistemic Justification", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 3. Traditional Accounts of Coherence, retrieved 10 March 2024
  13. ^ a b c d Ewing, A. C. (1937). "Meaninglessness". Mind. 46 (183): 347–364. ISSN 0026-4423 – via JSTOR.
  14. ^ Ewing, A. C. (1939). "The Linguistic Theory of "A Priori" Propositions". Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. 40: 207–244. ISSN 0066-7374 – via JSTOR.
  15. ^ Langford, C. H. (September 1942). "A. C. Ewing. The linguistic theory of a priori propositions. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, pp. 207–244". Journal of Symbolic Logic. 7 (3): 128. doi:10.2307/2269311. ISSN 0022-4812. JSTOR 2269311.
  16. ^ a b Blanshard, Brand (1974). "Alfred Cyril Ewing 1899-1973". Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association. 48: 171–172. ISSN 0065-972X – via JSTOR.
  17. ^ a b Price, H. H. (1942). "Review of Reason and Intuition". Philosophy. 17 (66): 176–179. ISSN 0031-8191 – via JSTOR.
  18. ^ a b Sabine, George H. (1943). "Review of Reason and Intuition". The Philosophical Review. 52 (4): 421–423. doi:10.2307/2180679. ISSN 0031-8108.
  19. ^ Goebel 2014, p. xiii.
  20. ^ Weingartner, Rudolph H. (6 November 2003). Mostly About Me: A Path Through Different Worlds. 1st Book Library. pp. 173–174. ISBN 978-1-4107-4391-6 – via Internet Archive.
  21. ^ a b Hurka, Thomas (6 November 2014), "Introduction: British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing", British Ethical Theorists from Sidgwick to Ewing, Oxford University Press, pp. 20–21, doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199233625.003.0001, retrieved 29 December 2023
  22. ^ Goebel 2014, p. ix.
  23. ^ Ayer, A. J. (1992). "Still More Of My Life". In Hahn, Lewis Edwin (ed.). The philosophy of A.J. Ayer. La Salle, Ill. : Open Court. p. 49. ISBN 978-0-8126-9172-6 – via Internet Archive. Ewing . . . was naive, unworldly even by academic standards, intellectually shrewd, unswervingly honest and a devout Christian.
  24. ^ Brand, Blanschard (1980). "Reply to A. C. Ewing". In Schilpp, Paul Arthur (ed.). The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard. La Salle, Ill. : Open Court. p. 237. ISBN 978-0-87548-349-8. Alfred Ewing died on May 14, 1973. . . . He had been my close friend for many years. He reviewed my Nature of Thought for Mind more than thirty years ago, and from that time on we remained in touch ... We were drawn together by . . . a common skepticism regarding some of the newer fashions in philosophy; and it is suggestive of one strong opinion . . . I shared that he . . . entitled one of his last books Non-linguistic Philosophy. . . . Like some other adherents of the more traditional styles of philosophizing, he was without the honor that he deserved in his own country, though his incisive critical essays, quietly written but stored with argumentative dynamite, must have taken effect upon such positivists and post-positivists as read him. Ewing had so sure a sense for the logical weaknesses of an opponent's position that I was always relieved when I found him on my side . . . Ethics was one of the subjects on which we differed, and . . . his rapier is pointed . . . at the most vulnerable points in my ethical armor.
  25. ^ Beaney, Michael, ed. (2013). The Oxford handbook of the history of analytic philosophy. Oxford : Oxford University Press. p. 5. ISBN 978-0-19-923884-2 – via Internet Archive.
  26. ^ Ewing, A.C. (January 1935). "Two Kinds of Analysis". Analysis. 2 (4): 60–64.
  27. ^ Muirhead, J. H. (1925). "Review of Kant's Treatment of Causality". Mind. 34 (134): 231–235. ISSN 0026-4423. JSTOR 2249448 – via Internet Archive.
  28. ^ Field, G. C. (1930). "Review of The Morality of Punishment". Journal of Philosophical Studies. 5 (18): 288–289. ISSN 1752-6795.
  29. ^ Walsh, W. H. (1939). "Review of A Short Commentary on Kant's Critique of Pure Reason". Philosophy. 14 (54): 215–217. ISSN 0031-8191 – via JSTOR.
  30. ^ Paton, H. J. (1939). "Review of A Short Commentary on Kant's `Critique of Pure Reason'". Mind. 48 (191): 373–377. ISSN 0026-4423 – via JSTOR.
  31. ^ Weldon, T. D. (1949). "Review of The Definition of Good". Philosophy. 24 (88): 82–83. ISSN 0031-8191 – via JSTOR.
  32. ^ Robinson, Richard (1948). "Review of The Definition of Good". The Review of Metaphysics. 1 (4): 104–112. ISSN 0034-6632 – via JSTOR.
  33. ^ Pleydell-Pearce, A. G. (January 1972). "Non-Linguistic Philosophy, by A. C. Ewing". Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology. 3 (1): 87–89. doi:10.1080/00071773.1972.11006235. ISSN 0007-1773. This book comprises fourteen essays, on a number of different subjects, written . . . over a period of some thirty years. . . . A sustained attack on the verification principle, an attack to which the author returns a number of times . . .helps to bring together articles on otherwise very different topics. These essays show Dr. Ewing also as consistently resistant to the philosophically fashionable. whether it be pre-war positivism or the later linguistic analytical approach of contemporary Anglo-Saxon philosophy. Although, on the evidence of this book, he appears more antagonistic to the former . . .
  34. ^ Knox, John (1975). "A. C. Ewing: A Critical Survey of Ewing's Recent Work". Religious Studies. 11 (2): 229–255. ISSN 0034-4125 – via JSTOR.
  35. ^ McPherson, Thomas (1975). "Reviewed Work: Value and Reality, The Philosophical Case for Theism. by A. C. Ewing". Mind. 84 (336): 625–628. doi:10.1093/mind/LXXXIV.1.625. JSTOR 2253651 – via JSTOR.
  36. ^ Tooley, Michael (1976). "Reviewed Work: Value and Reality: The Philosophical Case for Theism by A. C. Ewing". The Philosophical Review. 85 (1): 115–121. doi:10.2307/2184265. JSTOR 2184265.
  37. ^ BonJour, Laurence; Baker, Ann (2005). Philosophical problems : an annotated anthology. New York : Pearson Longman. p. 275. ISBN 978-0-321-23659-3 – via Internet Archive. In this . . . he defends a rationalist view of a priori justification, according to which the human mind has a fundamental capacity for insight into necessary truths. Along the way, he . . . also discusses the issues of innate ideas and induction.
  38. ^ Mercier, Andre; Svilar, Maja, eds. (1975). Philosphers on their own work (Philosphes critiques d'eux memes) (in English and French). International Federation of Philosophical Societies. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. ISBN 3261015675 – via Internet Archive.

Sources

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Further reading

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