Difference between revisions of "C. D. Broad" - New World Encyclopedia

From New World Encyclopedia
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==Broad's Work==
 
==Broad's Work==
  
Broad published a great deal. In fact, he published more than any other British philosopher in the 20th century, including Bertrand Russell.  
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Broad published a great deal—more, in fact, than any other British philosopher in the 20th century, including Bertrand Russell.  
  
  
In his autobiography in the Schilpp ''Library of Living Philosophers'' volume on his, he declared that
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In his autobiography in the Schilpp ''Library of Living Philosophers'' volume on his philosophy, he declared that
  
 
== Books and Publications ==
 
== Books and Publications ==

Revision as of 23:26, 17 August 2007

Western Philosophy
20th-century philosophy
Name: Charlie Dunbar (C.D.) Broad
Birth: December 30, 1887
Death: March 11, 1971
School/tradition: Analytic philosophy
Main interests
Metaphysics, Ethics, Philosophy of the Mind, Logic
Notable ideas
Influences Influenced
John Locke, William Ernest Johnson, Alfred North Whitehead, G. E. Moore, Bertrand Russell A. J. Ayer

Charlie Dunbar Broad (known as C.D. Broad) (30 December, 1887 - 11 March, 1971) was an English philosopher with moral philosophy, and the philsophical aspects of psychical research. He was known for his thorough and dispassionate examinations of all conceivable arguments in such works as The Mind and Its Place in Nature (1925), Scientific Thought (1930) and Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy (1933).

Life

Broad was born at Harlesden, a suburb of London, as the only child of middle class parents of comfortable circumstances. He received a good education at Dulwich College (a private school for boys) and, based on his interest and ability in science and mathematics, won a science scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1905, the university with which his subsequent philosophical career would be chiefly associated.

Despite early interest and success in science and mathematics, he became convinced that he would never be first-rate in those fields so he turned to philosophy and took first-class honors with special distinction in it in 1910. In 1911 he became a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, on the basis of a dissertation entitled Perception, Physics, and Reality. This became his first book in 1914.

In 1911 Broad went to the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. First he was assistant to G. F. Stout, professor of logic and metaphysics, and then a lecturer at Dundee. During World War I he combined his lecturship with work in a chemical laboratory for the Ministry of Munitions. He succeeded C. Lloyd Morgan in the chair of philosophy at the University of Bristol in 1920, but in 1923 returned to Trinity College, Cambridge, as successor to J. M. E. McTaggert as lecturer in moral science. In 1933 he became Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy. Until his retirement in 1953 he did not travel outside Great Britain except for visits to Scandanavia, especially Sweden. His meetings with and encouragement of Swedish philoosphers led to his being given honors by that country.

The strongest influences on Broad at Cambridge were McTaggert, W.E. Johnson, Bertrand Russell, and G.E. Moore. He studied carefully and was especially influenced by Russell's Principles of Mathematics, Moore's Refutation of Idealism—this work, he reports, knocked the bottom out of his youthful subjective idealism—and Johnson's work on problems of probability and induction. At St. Andrews he was in close contact with Stout and A.E. Taylor and learned much from both of them: among other things he learned from Stout the importance of psychology, and Taylor led him to read St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Anslem and to recognize the importance and philosophical abilities of the Medieval theologians.

Broad was president of the Aristotelian Society twice: 1927-1928; and 1954-1955.

Broad reported that he was personally almost wholly devoid of religious or mystical experience, but that he had a great interest in such experiences and believed that "they are probably of extreme importance in any theoretical interpretation of the world." ("Critical and Speculative Philosophy," # 3.ii) Later in life he had a great interest in and did investigations of psychical phenomena and parapsychology, and served two different times as the president of the Society of Psychical Research—1935 and 1958. He concluded that the experimental data warranted a belief in a "psychic factor," although he couched this in hypothetical form. (Andrew Chrucky, "C. D. Broad: The Default Philosopher of the Century," p. 4) Some have criticized him for this interest and investigation, saying that it was a betrayal of his clear-headed, analytic, scientific, and skeptical character, but others, such as Chrucky, have praised it as being in keeping with his synoptic and synthesizing stance toward everything.

Broad was homosexual and never married. That might not be something that should be noted, except that Broad himself was quite open and insistent about it, in an era when open acknowledgement of or declaration of one's homosexuality was rare.

Broad's Work

Broad published a great deal—more, in fact, than any other British philosopher in the 20th century, including Bertrand Russell.


In his autobiography in the Schilpp Library of Living Philosophers volume on his philosophy, he declared that

Books and Publications

  • Perception, Physics, and Reality, London: Cambridge University Press, 1914.
  • The Mind and Its Place in Nature, London: Kegan Paul, 1925.
  • Ethics and the History of Philosophy, London: Routledge, 1952.

External References

Philosophical Alternatives from C. D. Broad

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd Edition, Volume 1, Ed. by Donald M. Borchert, Farmington Hills, MI: MacMillian Reference, 2006.

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