Philosophy by the Book
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Philosophy at Sydney University
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Glasgow Hegelianism
Hegelian philosophy was initially introduced into British intellectual thought by S. T. Coleridge. The Philosophical Lectures (1804) were the first discussion of Hegel on British soil. In the following 50 years, Grote's Exploratio Philosophica, Caryle's Sartor Resartus and Ferrier's three volume Philosophical Works all exhibited Hegelian influences but had little impact on British philosophy of the time, dominated, as it was, by the theories of Mill and Hamilton. One important source of transmission of Hegelian ideas into British intellectual life was through the work of Benjamin Jowett, the Professor of Greek at Oxford University from 1855 to 1893. Jowett had studied Hegel and his translations of the Platonic dialogues bear the imprint of his Hegelian studies. Two of his more important students were T.H. Green and Edward Caird who went on to establish important centres of Hegelian studies at Oxford and Glasgow respectively. While Oxford under Green produced a solid body of independent philosophising in Absolute Idealist, philosophy at Glasgow, led by Edward and John Caird, concentrated on the theological issues raised by Hegel's work.
STIRLING, James Hutchison (1820 - 1909)
The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian system in origin, principle, form, and matter.
London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green, 1865.
The most significant publication in the dissemination of Hegelian philosophy in Britain was Stirling's The Secret of Hegel. In this work Stirling claimed that the Hegelian philosophy supported and gave effect to every claim to the Christian religion and this claim gave rise to the entire theological school of Hegelianism based at Glasgow which followed the appearance of his book. Although Stirling never gained the academic position he so clearly deserved, his influence on Scottish philosophy in the second half of the 19th century is undoubted.
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CAIRD, Edward (1835 - 1908)
Hegel.
Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1907.
Edward Caird studied under Benjamin Jowett at Oxford and after his appointment as Professor of Philosophy at Glasgow University, exercised a significant influence over several generations of students, many of whom travelled to the furthest reaches of the British Empire. The development of the theological interpretation of Hegel initiated by Hutchison Stirling was most fully presented in Caird's Hegel, prepared as part of the Blackwood Philosophic Classics series. Caird conceived of the universe as an organic system developing towards completion, the highest pinnacle was the Absolute, understood as identical with Christian God and the method of dialectic conceived as the process of 'ideal evolution'. These two aspects of Caird's work were given clearer exposition by two of Caird's students, J. Watson and D.G. Ritchie.
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RITCHIE, David George (1853 - 1903)
Darwin and Hegel: With other philosophical studies.
London: Swan Sonnenschein, 1893.
Ritchie's Darwin and Hegel attempted to unite Darwinian evolutionary theory with the Hegelian method of dialectic. Darwin's notions of hereditary and variation were none other than the Hegelian categories of identity and difference, while the 'struggle for existence' is the 'negation' of those aspects least suited for existence which produces a new and higher 'species'. Ritchie was particularly impressed by Samuel Alexander's reconciliation of Hegel and Darwin in his treatment of punishment.
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WATSON, John (1847 - 1939)
Christianity and Idealism: the Christian ideal of life in its relations to the Greek and Jewish ideals and to modern philosophy.
New York: Macmillan, 1897.
Watson's Christianity and Idealism on the other hand, attempted to unite Hegel's theory of the Absolute with the God of Christianity. Every advance in science, every improvement in social organisation and every advance in artistic creation, were the preparation for a clearer conception of God, the organic unity by which all things are bound together.
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Francis Anderson
The inaugural professor of philosophy at Sydney University was Francis Anderson. Born in Scotland and educated at Glasgow University, he excelled in classics and philosophy and was assistant to Edward Caird for two years. In 1886, Anderson accepted a position as assistant to Reverend Charles Strong at the Australia Church in Melbourne, but found that the pastoral life was not to his liking and subsequently accepted a position as lecturer in philosophy at Sydney University in 1888. Anderson defeated a strong field of applicants for the Challis Chair in Philosophy at Sydney in 1890, a position he retained for the next 31 years. During the first ten years in the position, Anderson appears to have concentrated exclusively on his teaching and published very little. His academic responsibility was to teach logic, ethics, metaphysics, ancient philosophy and modern philosophy, although he also taught the newer disciplines of psychology, sociology, economics, education and politics. His students included Christopher Brennan, Tasman Lovell, Bernard Muscio and V. Gordon Childe and his teaching ability was highly praised.
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"His clear and methodical exposition, his keen critical power, linked, as is not often the case, with sympathy for that which he criticised, his gift of apt and graceful expression, and his moral emotion all combined to make his lectures memorable and stimulating…He had a mastery of that essential simplicity which makes clear the greatest difficulties and was moved by a deep sincerity that dignified his every utterance. Indeed, his sincerity rose at times to a pitch of intensity that was a passionate vindication of some great truth, turning is whole exposition to poetry… But with his moral austerity there mingled like some fragrance a subtle sweetness of soul, a true gentleness of character. Though too elusive to be plain to all, yet one suspects that all the Professor's students who were at all capable of being "moved to fine issues", must have felt its influence. To those few, however, who had the privilege of a closer intimacy, this quality of tenderness was unmistakable."
ANDERSON, Francis (1858 - 1941)
The public school system of New South Wales.
Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1901.
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Of Anderson's many addresses, none was perhaps more significant than that on the public school system of NSW. In the words of one observer, "..he told them the truth about their training system, mocked their vaunted educational progress, compared their hide-bound organisation with the educational achievements of other countries, stuck several large pins into the complacent bureaucracy of the Department."
As he sat down, there was a storm of applause and more.
"Women were standing on chairs waving their handkerchiefs and parasols, men were stamping and shouting and shaking hands with perfect strangers. In short all the excitement which accompanies the removal of a repression manifested itself. The curtain, which the teachers were forbidden to touch had been raised from the outside. And there was this little Scotchman who had done it - small, slight, hot and somewhat embarrassed - smiling at them from the platform."
As a result of Anderson's address, a Royal Commission was established, at the end of which the old pupil-teacher system was abolished and a university degree made the academic requirement for teachers. As a consequence of this change the Sydney Teachers College was established in 1906 and the first chair in education in 1910.
The Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Volume 1, 1923
Edited by Francis Anderson
Sydney: The Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy, 1923.
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Over the next twenty years, Anderson was an active public speaker and pamphleteer. His presidential address to AAAS in 1907 was on Liberalism and Socialism and in 1909 he gave an address on The Organisation of National Education, In 1912, he published a pamphlet pleading for the teaching of sociology at the University and in 1914 the government printer published his Educational Policy and Development. In 1922, he published Liberty, Equality and Fraternity as a monograph for the A.A.P.P. These pamphlets formed the intellectual foundation of what Gregory Melluish has described as Australian Cultural Liberalism.
After his retirement in 1921, the university commissioned two frescoes in his honour which are still to be found in the Philosophy Lecture Room. In 1923, he became the first editor of the A.J.P.P. He was knighted in 1936 and died at his home in Woollahra on 24th June 1941 at the age of 82. John Passmore, while recognising the stimulus Anderson provided to psychological and social study at the University, argued that his contribution to philosophy was slight, for his instincts "..were those of a reformer and a preacher rather than a systematic philosopher.
Henry Jones in Sydney
In 1908, Henry Jones, Edward Caird's successor as Professor of Philosophy at Glasgow University, was invited to Sydney University by his former English literature teacher Mungo MacCallum to deliver a series of public lectures. Jones delivered five lectures in the Great Hall at Sydney University which were later published as Idealism as a Practical Creed. Jones also delivered lectures at Wollongong, where he was feted by local community leaders, and in Brisbane he delivered two lectures, `The Evolution of Man' and `The Function of the University in the State'. The latter lecture was an important stimulus to the establishment of the University of Queensland twelve months later. Idealism as a Practical Creed is firmly in the tradition of the public spiritedness of Glasgow Hegelianism and is dedicated to Mungo MacCallum, Edward Caird and the Australian people.
JONES, Henry, Sir (1852 - 1922)
Idealism as a practical creed.
Glasgow: James Maclehose, 1909.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
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Jones on Australia and Australians
"I liked Australia, and I liked the people still more. The clearness of its air and its purity have no parallel, I think. And the people were as bright and as sunny as the climate, fond of the gentler arts, especially of music, and above all of horse-racing - a more questionable excellence, perhaps. They have a strongly secular and materialistic side to them too, and they must learn to believe that they will not become a great people except by the impulsion of some ideal that is great and thoroughly believed in…. The Australian working man strikes me as a fellow who means to govern himself. He looks independent even to aggressiveness, and as if he reverenced neither God nor man."
"The first (Sydney) lecture is over… It was quite good, but not first-rate. The large hall was comfortably full to the very back - full of the right sort of people, says MacCallum. The lecture, he said, had thoroughly satisfied him in every direction and ought to have satisfied me.…. The MacCallums indicate pretty clearly that things have been going right as to the lectures. I kicked out in one lecture at Christian Science, and in another at Herbert Spencer. Both were impromptu, and both brought the house down. The final result is attacks by Christian Scientists and by the Spencerians. What I said of the former was incidental to my remarks on scepticism. I said I never knew men throw aside the sober raiment of the normal and reasonable beliefs of their time without putting on tinsel. Sceptics who deny much believe some very funny things. People who reject both science and Christianity believe in Christian Science. I think they do right in being angry. But MacCallum rejoices in the hits, for he altogether agrees with both my judgements."
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Samuel Alexander
While the Glaswegian influence at Sydney University had been strong since its inception, a strong Sydney influence was also in evidence at Glasgow University. Samuel Alexander was born in Sydney and after attending the Wesley College in Melbourne, went on to Oxford where he won the T. H. Green prize in moral philosophy. Alexander's essay for the prize, `Moral Order and Progress', was later praised by D. G. Ritchie, as one of the best examples of the blending of Hegelian Idealism with Darwinian evolutionary theory.
However after the publication of Moore's `refutation of Idealism', Alexander moved from Idealism to Realism, a transition which resulted in his 1917 Gifford Lectures at Glasgow University. These lectures impressed a young student then completing his M.A., the future professor of philosophy at Sydney, John Anderson. There can be little doubt that Space, Time and Deity was one of the great speculative systems of the twentieth century and John Anderson's 1944 and 1949 lectures on this work were regarded by many as going to the heart of Anderson's own philosophy.
Bernard Muscio
Bernard Muscio was born in 1888 in NSW from Italian ancestry on his father's side. He was educated at Sydney University and had a brilliant academic career winning First Class Honours in his MA in philosophy and taking out the University Medal. His interests extended also to literature and psychology. He won the Woolley Travelling Scholarship which enabled him to travel to Cambridge where he did a research degree on Idealism and the New Realism. He had contact with James Ward, Russell and Moore. Ward wrote a letter of recommendation to the selection committee for the Sydney Chair in which he compared Muscio with Descartes and Sidgwick with respect to his philosophical capacity, scientific method and freedom from bias. He also won the Burney Prize for a thesis on Freewill and Determinism. He acted as University Demonstrator in Psychology (he took over the work of Dr Myers, the head of the Cambridge Psychological Laboratory during the war) for two years before returning to Sydney to act as lecturer in Mental and Moral Philosophy during Professor Anderson's absence on leave. He also acted as lecturer in Psychology when Tasman Lovell was Censor during the war.
Muscio also delivered a series on lectures on Industrial Psychology which were later published in a volume which had a large circulation in England, America and Japan. Muscio was appointed to the Challis Chair of Philosophy in 1922. Within twelve months of his appointment he was elected the first president of the A.A.P.P and the first issue of the A.J.P.P. appeared with Francis Anderson as the editor. The editorship of the A.J.P.P. remained in Sydney for the next forty years. Muscio died in 1926 at the age of 39.
"He stood every test and always rang true. He was without the slight trace of self-seeking or self-assertion. He spoke no evil because he thought no evil. His sympathetic understanding made him look for and find the best in all kinds of men and movements. I have never known anyone who was so free from bias and prejudice of any kind, a quality especially admirable in a professional teacher of philosophy."
MUSCIO, Bernard (1888 - 1926)
Lectures on industrial psychology.
Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1909.
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John Anderson
John Anderson was born in Scotland in 1893 and after coming first in the All Scotland Bursary Competition, entered Glasgow University in 1911. Anderson won many prizes and awards and after brief periods of teaching at Wales and Glasgow, was appointed lecturer in philosophy at Edinburgh University in 1922. In 1927 he appointed as the Challis Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University.
Anderson's tenure at Sydney University was marked by several notable controversies including the 1931 `War Idols' controversy, the 1943 `Religion in Education' controversy and the 1961 Gough affair. Anderson was also a staunch defender of S. S. Orr after his sacking from the University of Tasmania.
Like his predecessor, John Anderson published very little during his lifetime. Education and Politics was the only work published by Anderson outside of academic journals and student publications. The book is a collection of four essays written from 1928 to 1930. Of these articles, two are of particular importance - `Censorship' and `Socrates as an educator'.
Anderson retired from the Challis Chair in 1958 having educated some of the most influential philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. He died in July 1962.
"Anderson stood for everything to which the Christian Idealists had been opposed. That he was prepared to describe himself as a materialist, a positivist, an empiricist, a realist, was sufficiently startling, for in Australian academic philosophy these had been terms of abuse. But even more disconcerting was the fact that he did not fit into the picture which Australian Idealists had constructed of their opponents - as in the fortress at Singapore, their guns were pointing in the wrong direction.
ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
Education and politics.
Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1931.
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ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
Studies in empirical philosophy.
Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1962.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
Anderson's Studies in Empirical Philosophy was the first book on philosophy produced by a Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University - some eighty years after the inauguration of the professorship. The book collects many of Anderson's more important articles into a single volume, although it represents only a very small proportion of his academic output during his lifetime. Anderson died in the final stages in the preparation of this work.
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ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
Education and inquiry.
Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1980.
Anderson's role as an educator has been much discussed and Education and Inquiry highlights some of his main education ideas. However the selection of material is limited and does not include Anderson's views on a wide range of educational issues, particularly his conception of education as freethinking and the opposition of education to censorship.
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Although Anderson never wrote reviews or articles on the work of Gilbert Ryle, John Austin, Strawson or Karl Popper, in his letters to Ruth Walker in 1952 he did compose a ballad and a blues dealing with these philosophers. Those Sydney Blues was written for a student of Anderson's, Peter Gibbons, who had gone to Oxford to study. Doug MacCallum, later Professor of Political Science at N.S.W. University, was another student of Anderson's in Oxford at that time. `The Ballad of the Open Society' was written for Ruth's amusement - she is the `travelling scholar' - during her arguments with Popper, who was at the London School of Economics at the time and a regular at the philosophy conferences. Despite the common perception of Anderson as logically dry and humourless professor, these verses demonstrate a keen wit and a character that could be passionately committed to causes and individuals.
ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
Those Sydney blues.
1952
University of Sydney Archives
Lyrics to Those Sydney Blues
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ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
Art & reality : John Anderson on literature and aesthetics / edited by Janet Anderson, Graham Cullum, Kimon Lycos.
Sydney: Hale & Iremonger, 1982.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
Art and Reality is widely regarded as an authoritative collection of Anderson's literary and aesthetic writings, although the final product did not prove satisfactory to John's family. However recent archival research has revealed a number of important omissions from the volume, most notably his 1942 lectures on aesthetics.
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ANDERSON, John (1893 - 1962)
A perilous and fighting life: From communist to conservative. The political writings of Professor John Anderson / edited by Mark Weblin.
Victoria: Pluto Press, 2003.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
A Perilous and Fighting Life collects together a representative sample of Anderson's political writings during his residence in Sydney. The most remarkable feature of these writings is Anderson's transition from Communism to Trotskyism to liberal democrat before finally coming to a position of secular conservatism.
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The Andersonians
Studying philosophy under John Anderson inspired many students to become professional philosophers. Although the most famous of these were John Passmore, David Armstrong, John Mackie and Eugene Kamenka there were many who were less well known. These include Perce Partridge, Jim Baker, Ruth Walker, Tom Rose, George Molnar, etc. Apart from these professional philosophers, there were many who took a major degree in philosophy under Anderson and went on to pursue careers in the academic and non academic workplace. These include Frank Fowler, Harry Eddy, Bill Morison, Harry Nicolson, Bill Maidment, Margaret Mackie and many others. A full list of the `Andersonians' would run to several hundred.
PASSMORE, John
A hundred years of philosophy.
London: Gerald Duckworth, 1957.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
John Passmore studied under Anderson in the early thirties and was appointed to the department in 1934. Passmore remained at Sydney until 1950 when he went first to the University of Otago and then to A.N.U.. Passmore's Hundred Years of Philosophy is regarded as one of the classics in its field. |
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MACKIE, John Leslie
Ethics: Inventing right and wrong.
London: Penguin, 1977.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
John Mackie studied under Anderson in the 1930's and was employed in the department during the 1950's. He succeeded to the Challis Chair after Anderson retired but held it for only four years before taking a position at Oxford University. Mackie's Ethics is widely regarded as one of the most important books on ethics in the second half of the 20th century. |
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ARMSTRONG, David Malet (1926 - )
A materialist theory of the mind.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1968.
David Armstrong studied under Anderson during the 1940's and after a brief period of employment at Melbourne University, took over the Challis Chair at Sydney in 1964, a position he held until 1991. Armstrong's Materialist Theory of Mind is one of the founding texts in the school known as Australian Materialism. |
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KAMENKA, Eugene (1928 - 1994)
The ethical foundations of Marxism.
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962.
Private library of Professor John Anderson
Eugene Kamenka studied under Anderson during the 1950 and eventually held a chair at the A.N.U. Kamenka's Ethical Foundations of Marxism is an important analysis of Marxism from an Andersonian perspective. |
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BAKER, A.J.
Anderson's social philosophy.
Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1979.
Jim Baker studied under Anderson during the 1940's and was appointed to the department during the 1950's. Baker was a lecturer in philosophy first at Otago University and then at Macquarie University. Baker wrote on a wide range of subjects in philosophy but is best remembered for his two studies on Anderson. Anderson's Social Philosophy is a good analysis of Anderson's social, ethical and political theories and Anderson's political development. His Australian Realism is a concise and critical analysis of the main features of Anderson's philosophy. |
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BAKER, A.J.
Australian realism: The systematic philosophy of John Anderson.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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