A. C. Grayling

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Anthony Grayling

Anthony Clifford Grayling MA, DPhil (Oxon) FRSA (born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher and author. He is Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London and a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

Background

Grayling was born in Luanshya, Zambia and spent his formative years in the British expatriate community of East Africa. His first exposure to philosophical writing was at the age of twelve when he read an English translation of Plato's Charmides dialogue. At fourteen he read G. H. Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy. This work was instrumental in confirming his ambition to study philosophy. Grayling later remarked on the text, "It superinduced order on the random reading that had preceded it, and settled my vocation."

After returning to England in his teens Grayling studied at Sussex University and Magdalen College, Oxford where he obtained his doctorate in 1981. The subject of his thesis was "scepticism and transcendental arguments." This was supervised by the philosophers P. F. Strawson and A. J. Ayer. Grayling lectured in philosophy at St Anne’s College, Oxford before taking up a post at Birkbeck, University of London where he subsequently became Reader in Philosophy, and then Professor of Philosophy. Grayling is also a director of and regular contributor to Prospect magazine.

Academic interests

Grayling’s main areas of interest are the theory of knowledge, metaphysics, and philosophical logic. He brings these subjects together in an attempt to define the relationship between mind and world, and in so doing he is challenging the ideas of philosophical scepticism. His arguments are elucidated in a number of publications, including The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), Berkeley: The Central Arguments (1986), Wittgenstein (1988), and Russell (1996). Grayling uses philosophical logic to counter the arguments of the sceptic, thereby shedding light on the traditional ideas of the realism debate and developing associated views on truth and meaning. His ideas are described in the later chapters of An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (1982), and advanced in a series of papers including Epistemology and Realism (1991-2), and Independence and Transcendence: The Independence Thesis and Realism (1998). In these publications he puts forward the idea that we should consider realism as a primarily epistemological—rather than a metaphysical or a semantic—concept on the relations between mind and world.

Grayling has written widely on contemporary issues including war crimes, the legalisation of drugs, euthanasia, secularism, and human rights. In support of his belief that the philosopher should engage in public debate, he brings the philosophical perspective to issues of the day in his work as a commentator on radio and television. Between 1999 and 2002 he wrote a weekly column in The Guardian called "The Last Word", in which he turned his attention to a different topic every week. In these columns, which also formed the basis of a series of popular books (commencing with The Meaning of Things in 2001), Grayling made the basics of philosophy available to the layman.

Positions held

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
• Fellow of the World Economic Forum
• Member of the editorial boards of Reason in Practice and Prospect
• British Academy visitor to the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1986)
• Director of the Sino-British Summer School in Philosophy in Beijing (1988, 1993)
• Jan Hus Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy at the Czech Academy of Science (1994 and 1996)
• Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (1998)
• Honorary Secretary of the Aristotelian Society (1993-2001)
• Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow (2005)
• Past chairman of June Fourth, a human rights group concerned with China
• Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society
• Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association

Publications

• An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (1982), ISBN 0-389-20299-1
  • 2nd ed. (1990), ISBN 0-7156-2353-2
  • 3rd ed. (1997), ISBN 0-631-20655-8
• The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), ISBN 0-7156-1922-5
• Berkeley: The Central Arguments (1986), ISBN 0-7156-2065-7
• Wittgenstein (1988), ISBN 0-19-287676-7
• China: A Literary Companion (1994), ISBN 0-7195-5353-9, with Susan Whitfield
• Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject (1995), ISBN 0-19-875156-7, ed.
• Russell (1996), ISBN 0-19-287683-X
• The Future of Moral Values (1997), ISBN 0-297-81973-9
• Philosophy 2: Further Through the Subject (1998), ISBN 0-19-875179-6, ed.
• The Quarrel of the Age: The Life and Times of William Hazlitt (2000), ISBN 0-297-64322-3
• The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life (2001), ISBN 0-297-60758-8
  • published in the U.S. as Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age
• The Reason of Things: Living with Philosophy (2002), ISBN 0-297-82935-1
• What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live (2003), ISBN 0-297-84132-7
  • published in the U.S. as Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God
• The Mystery of Things (2004), ISBN 0-297-64559-5
• Descartes: The Life of René Descartes and Its Place in His Times (2005), ISBN 0-7432-3147-3
• The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century (2005), ISBN 0-297-84819-4
• The Form of Things: Essays on Life, Ideas and Liberty in the 21st Century (2006), ISBN 0-297-85167-5
• The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy (2006), ISBN 1-84371-141-9, ed. with Andrew Pyle and Naomi Goulder
• Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? (2006), ISBN 0-7475-7671-8
• Truth, Meaning and Realism: Philosophical Investigations (forthcoming May 2007), ISBN 978-0-8264-9748-2

Reviews of Grayling's work

• Smoler, Fredric. "Was the American Bombing Campaign in World War II a War Crime?" Review of Among the Dead Cities: The History and Moral Legacy of the WWII Bombing of Civilians in Germany and Japan by A. C. Grayling. American Heritage, April 6, 2006.

External links

• A. C. Grayling website
• Comment is Free articles