Brief History of
the Department of Philosophy
University of Liverpool
In 1881 the Chair of Logic,
Mental & Moral Philosophy, and Political Economy at University College
Liverpool was established, in accordance with the plan devised at a Town Meeting
in 1878, by the gift of £10,000 from the Scottish Merchants of Liverpool. The
first occupant of the Chair - renamed the Chair of Philosophy and Political
Economy in 1882 and in 1891 simply the Chair of Philosophy - was John
MacCunn of Balliol College (1881-1910), described by a later acquaintance
as ‘salt of the earth, and most modest of men’, whose ‘brilliant wife taught
many of us what good talk could be’ (Ramsay Muir (c.1940), in Hair Arts
Letters Society p.92). Throughout his tenure, Prof MacCunn gave classes on
Logic, Moral Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy, Political Economy and Psychology.
He also gave occasional classes on Education. After six years, he was joined by
a Political Economist, who was promoted to an independent Chair in the subject
in 1891. The Faculty of Arts was established in 1896. In 1899, another of his
associates was promoted to a Chair in Education. In Prof MacCunn’s early years,
the price for a single term’s course was £1-7s-6d. An evening course on
Formation of Character (at once pedagogic and academic) cost 6s a term. Oliver
Lodge, in Physics, and Charles Sherrington, in Psychology, were friends and
associates. It is perhaps worth noting that Eleanor Rathbone
herself returned to Liverpool in 1897 to
devote herself to Philosophy - but found other and more immediately practical
things to do with her energies.
In 1901 MacCunn was joined
by Alexander Mair of Edinburgh - later Dean of the Faculty, and Prof
MacCunn’s successor in the Chair of Philosophy. Mair introduced the study of
Kant as an option, and ‘English Philosophy’ (from Hobbes to the present day)
but was in all other ways faithful to MacCunn’s project. MacCunn and Mair are
also listed as contributors to the History, Psychology and Education
programmes. Courses in Theory of Knowledge seem to be emerging from the
Philosophical Psychology courses during these years. In 1903 the University College became a distinct University. In
1908 MacCunn and Mair were joined for one year only by ‘Dr.Watt’, who also
lectured in Education. In the following year, C.L.Burt was
appointed to a lectureship in Experimental Psychology under MacCunn’s
leadership (1909-14). In 1910 Mair succeeded MacCunn, affirming in his
Inaugural - on Philosophy and Reality - his deep gratitude and devotion
to MacCunn. He was Professor from 1910 to 1927 (and effectively Professor of
Psychology, in the Science Faculty, as well). MacCunn died in 1929 (Times
obituary 25 March 1929)
Prof Mair and Burt were
joined for a single year (1910-11) by W.R.Boyce-Gibson
of Oxford and Jena (Husserl’s
translator). He moved on to the Chair of Philosophy at Melbourne, whose website says: ‘In 1935
W.R.Boyce Gibson died. His son, Alexander (‘Sandy’) Boyce Gibson, then a Lecturer at the University of Birmingham, succeeded him in the Chair,
which he held until his retirement in 1965. … In 1966, the Department found
itself Boyce Gibson-less for the first time since 1911. This situation was
rectified by renaming the Chair the Boyce Gibson Chair of Philosophy, and
appointing Douglas Gasking [a pupil of Wittgenstein] to it.’ Boyce-Gibson’s
successor at Liverpool was J.Handyside
of Oxford
(1911-17), a Kantian, and author of, amongst others, The Historical Method
in Ethics (Liverpool University Press 1920) and Kant’s Inaugural
Dissertation and Early Writings on Space (Open Court 1929): I do not yet know where
Handyside moved to. During this period, and on until the 50s, students wishing
to read Honours in Philosophy (as also in History and other Arts subjects) had
to have evidence that they could make use either of Greek or German in their
studies - and the choice of Plato or Kant was built into the simple
syllabus. In 1917 Mair was alone again - except for W.H.Young,
who had been appointed to a new Chair in the Philosophy and History of
Mathematics (1913-19), but does not seem to have contributed to the regular
Philosophy courses - perhaps because he was simultaneously Professor of
Mathematics at Calcutta
(1913-16). In the following year Mair was joined by G.C.Field, who
became a Senior Lecturer in 1920, Dean in 1923 and left for Bristol in 1926. He was later a Fellow of the
British Academy, and author of Plato and his
Contemporaries, dying in 1955 (Times obituary 30 April 1955).
In Mair’s last year in office he was joined by L.A.Reid as Senior Lecturer
and J.E.Turner as Reader. ‘Louis Arnaud Reid (1895-1986) studied
philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and from 1919 to 1926 lectured in
Aberystwyth and Liverpool’, the website says: ‘From 1932 to 1947 he was
Professor at Armstrong College, Newcastle and then, in 1947, became the first
Professor of the Philosophy of Education in Britain, at the Institute of
Education, University of London, a post which he held until his retirement in
1962. After his retirement, among other activities, he continued to teach
students in the Art and Design Department of the Institute of Education.
He was closely involved with the Philosophy of Education Society of Great
Britain and wrote and lectured widely on aesthetics and the arts.’
Turner was himself a Liverpool man, earning his BA, MA and PhD in succession
from the University. His PhD thesis, in the University Library, was on ‘A
theory of direct realism, and the relation of realism to idealism’. Other books
by him include An examination of William James’s philosophy: a critical
essay for the general reader (Blackwell 1919), Personality and reality:
a proof of the real existence of a supreme self in the universe (Allen
& Unwin 1926), The nature of deity: a sequel to ‘Personality and
reality’ (Allen & Unwin 1927), and Essentials in the development of
religion: a philosophic and psychological study (Library of Philosophy
1934). He was in fact one of the most prolific of Liverpool’s
philosophers - and interestingly concerned with issues in the philosophy of
religion which the founders of the University had sought to exclude. It was in
his time that the Forwood Lectures in the Philosophy of Religion were
established (1928) - but never mentioned in the Calendar! The University
Archivist has had some correspondence with an American scholar who wishes to
republish some of Turner’s work on American Realism.
Prof Mair died in 1927
(aged 56) and was succeeded by Alan Dorward - yet another Scot, this
time from Edinburgh and Trinity College, Cambridge. Dorward was a friend and disciple
of Bertrand Russell - Russell’s favourable reference had perhaps cost him a Cambridge fellowship -
and of G.E.Moore. He came with glowing reports from Moore, Stout and Pringle-Pattison, describing
him as ‘accessible, decent and kind’. Whether Turner had been a candidate for
the Chair I do not know. The records suggest that it had been decided not to
advertise the Chair but to make enquiries and seek to fill the vacancy by
invitation. The report of the Faculty’s committee (University Report Book,
vol.13, p.227), according to the University Archivist, states that ‘in the
final stages the Committee confined its inquiries to some six names’ and it
‘interviewed formally one candidate, and the members of the Committee had an
opportunity of meeting informally another candidate.’ The report, recommending
Dorward’s appointment, quotes from six references, provided by, amongst others,
G.E.Moore. Maybe the electors wanted new blood, or maybe Turner’s interest in
the philosophy of religion counted against him. Turner, in any case, continued
to write, and Prof.Dorward unfortunately did not. Dorward is remembered
anecdotally in the University as ‘Deadwood’ - and it is indeed true that he
made no returns in the Faculty Annual Report either about his own work or his colleagues’,
that he published almost nothing except a short account of Russell’s philosophy
(Bertrand Russell - a short guide to his philosophy (Longmans 1951)),
and that the Philosophy curriculum remained unchanged and unexpanded for his
entire tenure. Students for decades chose from papers on Logic, Psychology,
Ancient Philosophy, Ethics, Modern Philosophy, a General Paper and a
Dissertation - and even the readings probably stayed the same.
‘Bruce Truscott’, writing
in Redbrick and these Vital Days (pp.96f), chose ‘Deadwood’ as his
particular target: ‘This is Professor Deadwood’s day in term-time. (I don’t
know, and I can’t imagine, what he does in the vacations.) He has a leisurely
breakfast at half-past-eight, followed by pipe and paper; reaches the University
between ten and half-past; reads his letters and perhaps writes one; saunters
into the Common Room for a cup of coffee; calls on a colleague, or the Bursar,
or the Clerk to the Senate; returns to his room, glances through the latest
issue of a learned review, has a few words with a pupil - and lo, it’s
lunch-time. After lunch in the refectory, followed by a chat about the day’s
news in the Common Room, he gives a lecture at half-past-two, and immediately
afterwards hurries home lest he should be late for tea. After tea comes the
day’s exercise (unless it happens to be a day when he has no lecture, in which
case he plays golf in the afternoon) and after dinner he spends a couple of
hours with a new book on his special subject (or a book from the circulating
library on something else), after which, the paper again, a nightcap, and bed
at eleven after a somewhat tiring but thoroughly well-spent day. …. And the
ironic part of it … is that ten or twenty years ago, these same unproductive
professors, then candidates for the Chairs they now hold, were producing useful
work, sometimes steadily, sometimes rapidly, until they gained the coveted post
which for them has been equivalent to retirement from productiveness
altogether.’
But ‘Bruce Truscott’
(actually Allison Peers, then Professor of Hispanic Studies at Liverpool) cannot be entirely trusted to have captured
Dorward. Cécile Dorward’s moving and amusing autobiography (Dorward &
Davidson 2000) reveals something of the man behind the façade. The first
thing that struck her - he had picked her up at a club in London - was that ‘he never had anything bad
to say about anyone’ (p.48). She married him in 1932 - in a registry office -
despite her Catholicism, his polite agnosticism and her father’s strenuous
disapproval, and loved him till the end. Unfortunately, he was frequently
depressed; he drank too much; he was sexually inhibited - ‘he was a god to me’
(she said), ‘though not in bed’; and he had been exiled far away from Cambridge
- though he had the company of friends like Huxley, Stapledon and Haldane, and
of a devoted and lively wife, who shared his sense of humour. There were weekly
meetings of staff and interested members of the public at their house in Percy Street, and
invitations to spend weekends on their canal boat. He actually did publish some
work other than the study of Russell - a series of anonymous letters in the
local press in the 1930s against appeasement, and incidentally against Olaf Stapledon (the
seminal science-fiction writer, author of Last and First Men and a major
influence on - amongst many others - Arthur C.Clarke and John Maynard Smith). A
batch of his papers, sadly, was stolen and presumably trashed, after his death,
or we might be able to learn more of his thought. Stapledon himself (whose
portrait hangs in No 7) was never a member of the Philosophy Department. He
took his BA at Balliol, and his PhD - in Philosophical Psychology - at Liverpool, and taught for many years on the extra-mural
programme.
By 1932 Reid had gone, to a
Chair at Newcastle,
and then to the Institute
of Education in London. The post was
filled briefly a year later by R.Jackson (1933-4), and in 1935-6 by
A.T.Shillinglaw, but Dorward and Turner were the permanent staff of the
Department. In 1936 they were joined by W.H.F.Barnes. Turner retired -
apparently without farewell or valedictory address - in 1941. Barnes - to judge
from his Who’s Who entry (1988 edition) was on leave from 1941 to serve
the war effort, so that Dorward was alone till 1945. Barnes went straight on to
Chairs at Durham
and Edinburgh,
returning to Liverpool as its Vice-Chancellor
from 1963 to 1969.
In 1945, Dorward was joined
by Casimir Lewy, who served till 1952 (like Dorward, he was a disciple
of Moore) .
Metaphysics is mentioned in the Calendar as a possible course, but the basic
pattern of the curriculum remains unchanged. In 1949 Dorward and Lewy were
joined by one ‘Pamela Clark’, later Pamela Huby (married 1956), who
remained in post till 1987, and so served under four Professors, often as
Acting Head of Department. When she joined the Department, she recalls, she
shared a room with four other junior lecturers, on the fourth floor of what was
then the New Arts Building,
at the top of Brownlow Hill. There were no honours students, and Clark, Dorward
and Lewy taught a variety of courses to a variety of students, including
medical students and architects. A year later Prof.Hilary Armstrong took up the
Gladstone Chair of Greek, and the long association of Philosophy and Classics
began. Lewy left in 1952; Dorward retired in 1954. He was succeeded by Daniel
O’Connor (1954-57), whose interests included the educational ones that had
been central to MacCunn and Mair, but the (notional) curriculum remained the
same. The Departmental grant was £10 per annum, and there was no secretarial
help. In O’Connor’s last year at Liverpool, P.H.Nidditch
(a philosopher of science) joined the Department (serving till 1958). Dorward,
by the way, died of cancer in 1956, and his widow began a new life as an
Occupational Therapist and campervan-dwelling hippy (her expression),
eventually settling in Australia
(so proving that there is hope for us all). She died in 2001.
O’Connor left for Exeter University
in 1957, and was succeeded by Antony Lloyd of Balliol (1957-83), a
specialist in ancient philosophy, and incidentally a resolute fellow-traveller
(I am told that he did not care to be thought a Stalinist, strictly so-called).
The Department was still at first composed of only two or three staff. In 1959 W.E.Abraham
replaced Nidditch, who went to Bristol.
Nidditch died in 1983 just before he was due to act as External Adviser in an
appointment to the Liverpool Chair. In 1960 R.D.Sykes replaced Abraham, who had
been elected to a Fellowship at All Souls soon after his arrival in Liverpool
(Abraham eventually went on to the University of California at Santa Cruz, and
wrote The Mind of Africa (or vice versa); he also served in Nkrumah's
first Cabinet, in Ghana). In 1961-2 Lloyd and Huby were alone again. In 1962 they were joined by Daniel
M.Taylor (1962-66: not to be confused, as once I did myself, with another Daniel Taylor,
Professor of Philosophy at Otago). Taylor
left for the University
of Kent in 1966, and
wrote Explanation and meaning: an introduction to philosophy (Cambridge 1970). Paul
Helm joined in 1964 as an assistant lecturer, rising over the years to
Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Reader (1964-93), and then departing to a Chair
at Kings College London. With a complement of four, the Department was larger
than it had ever been. The curriculum was much the same, but during the 50s the
Department’s involvement in teaching students of all sorts had begun to
increase again, with the establishment of new Joint Degrees, with Greek,
English, Politics and - briefly - Economics. At some point in the early 60s the
Department moved, along with other Arts Departments, from the New Arts Building (where Paul Helm had shared an
office with Pamela Huby) to the new Modern
Languages Building
off Abercromby Square.
Oddly, Buildings & Estates Minutes reveal that Philosophy’s home was
intended to be No.7 Abercromby
Square! But the idea was hurriedly suppressed -
certainly before any junior staff knew of it - and the Department had to wait
till the early 90s before moving into No.7. Professor Fröhlich of the
Theoretical Physics Department had an office in No.7 in the 1970s: see http://www.physics.purdue.edu/deptinfo/alumni/honor/frohlich.html
for an account of his work, which was concerned with issues in theoretical
biology as well as physics.
The Department has never
since had fewer than four staff. In the University’s beginnings Professors were
their Departments, only gradually acquiring assistants and occasional
colleagues. Even in the 50s and 60s staff often served only for a year, whether
by choice or appointment. Amongst such temporary and even part-time staff were
Anthony Kenny (1961-63), G.Marshall (1966-67), John King-Farlow as a Leverhulme
Fellow (1966-68: author of Self-knowledge and social relations : groundwork
of universal community (Science-History Publications 1978) and other works
in the philosophy of religion) and Margaret Renaud (1968-69: later a Family Court Judge in
Australia, retiring in 1998). What effect the presence of a former colleague
as Vice-Chancellor had on the Department I do not know. More permanent staff
had also began to arrive: John Williamson (1966-2000 vice Taylor; briefly married
to Renaud), Raymond Frey (1970-86), Howard Robinson
(1974-2001). Reports of the time refer also to the assistance of the philosophy
tutor in the Institute
of Extension Studies (Elizabeth Kingdom - who eventually joined the Sociology
Department). A.C.Lambert (1971-72), R.I.Bainbridge (1972-74), Ruth Chadwick
(1979-80) and Garrett Thomson (1981-82: author of Needs (Routledge
1987); he returned briefly to Liverpool to
stand in for Frey during 1984-5) helped Lloyd, Huby, Helm and Williamson to
take time off from teaching for their research. By the time Prof Lloyd retired,
in 1983, there were six full-time lecturing staff (and a part-time secretary).
He was succeeded by Dr Stephen Clark
- yet another graduate of Balliol (and All Souls) and coming down from a
ten-year stay in Glasgow - but not actually a Scot. As in Dorward’s day, there
had been a strong internal candidate. The Gladstone
Professor of Greek - and a power in the University - was Anthony Long by this
time, in succession to Prof Armstrong, and he had hopes of sustaining the
classical tradition that had been created by Lloyd, Huby, Armstrong, Long
himself and Henry Blumenthal. Unfortunately, the tradition that no-one was to
do Honours Philosophy - or much else in the Faculty - without either Greek or
German was long gone, and Long himself departed to America in the same year as
Lloyd's retirement. Although the Department offers more Ancient Philosophical
courses, and especially more Late Antique courses, than is by now the norm in
British Universities it is unlikely to challenge the supremacy in this field of
Oxford, Cambridge and London.
Frey - an American citizen
- departed to a Chair at Bowling Green State University, Ohio, in 1986, and Dr.Mark
Sacks - an Israeli citizen - was appointed - despite difficulties with the
Home Office - to maintain the Kantian option in the Department (1987-92). Huby
retired in 1987, moving to Tunbridge Wells, and continued her collaboration in Project
Theophrastus, organized by Richard Sorabji from London. During the late 80s, it often seemed
possible that the Department would evaporate. Instead, two philosophers
transferred to Liverpool from East Anglia (Dr.Michael McGhee and
Dr.Nicholas Nathan)
in 1987 and 1988 respectively, bringing the total complement of staff, briefly,
to eight. Dr Simon Glynn (now at Florida
Atlantic University)
and Jackie Catterwell taught part-time for the Department during those years.
Helm made a sideways move into Administration, as Director of Staffing
Services, for four years, and two temporary appointments were made, Dr.Peter
Milne (1989-90: now at Edinburgh) and Dr.Barry Dainton
(1990-92). When Sacks moved on to Essex in
1992, Dainton was appointed to a permanent position. Nathan also negotiated a
change in his contract to release some funds, and we were joined by Dr.Gill Howie in
1992 on what was at first a rolling contract (quickly changed into a regular
one). Helm rejoined the Department in the same year as our move to No.7 Abercromby Square,
but was then appointed to the Chair at Kings College London in 1993, and
replaced by Dr.Pauline
Phemister. Thanks to McGhee's efforts the Charles Wallace Memorial
Trust has provided funds for a visiting Indian philosopher each year, and most
members of the Department have participated in the series of Anglo-Indian
Convivia organized by McGhee and Prabodh Parekh of Mumbai. Robinson’s temporary
appointment to the Soros Chair at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest released
funds to employ Dr.Brendan Larvor (1994-96 - now at Hertfordshire), as well as
creating opportunities for Hungarian philosophers such as George Gereby and
Katalin Farkas to spend time in the Department. In the same year, an NHS Grant
negotiated by a philosophically inclined statistician (Dr Jane Hutton, now at Warwick) brought us
Dr.Richard Ashcroft (1997-98 - now at Imperial College).
From 1995-98 Clark was Dean, and McGhee took
over as Head of Department. In the following year, McGhee, Phemister and Clark
were all variously on leave, and Dr.Raphael Wolff had a one-year appointment
(1998-99: now at Harvard).
Williamson retired in 2000
after thirty-three years in the Department, and Dr Friederike Moltmann
was appointed to teach Logic and related topics (2000-2): she was awarded a
British Academy Research Readership for 2002-4, and took it with her to a
Readership at the University
of Stirling in September
2002. Robinson took up a Chair at the Central European
University in Budapest in 2000, and Dr.Richard Gaskin
(formerly of Sussex)
was appointed to a Second Chair of Philosophy in his place (2001- ). The
interval between Robinson’s departure and Gaskin’s arrival was occupied by Dr.Simon Hailwood
(2000-2001), with additional assistance from other part-timers: Dr Chris Bartley, David Bates, Dr
Jonathan Clatworthy (then Anglican Chaplain), Dr Daniel Hill, Dr Alison
Loughlin and Dr
Piers Stephens. Nathan also retired, and a new post was created in
recognition of our high staff-student ratio. Dr Jonardon Ganeri
was appointed to this lectureship, joining us in January 2002
and bringing the complement of teaching staff back to eight - i.e. Clark,
Dainton, Ganeri, Gaskin, Howie, McGhee, Moltmann and Phemister. Ganeri was
promoted to a Readership in 2002. Hailwood stood in once again for a departed
colleague (Moltmann) in 2002-4. We shall still be relying heavily on our
part-time staff and postgraduate assistants to help teach our large first-year
classes. In the QAA inspection of the Department in February 2001, we were
awarded 24/24, and our present and former students were especially praised for
their commitment to the Department, and for their manifest competence. The
Research Assessment Exercise for 2001 awarded a 4, acknowledging that
‘virtually all’ the work contributed ‘in a significant way to knowledge and
understanding in its field’, that there was some work ‘of whose general theme
every serious worker in the field is or ought to be aware’, and that we had
special strengths in Ancient Philosophy.
In the beginnings of the
Chair and Department of Philosophy, it was taken as read that a Philosopher
should have interests in Science and in Society as well as in the Arts, and
that it was also the Chair’s place to educate the citizens of Liverpool.
Political Economy, Education and Psychology were all once Philosophical - and
only slowly took on a separate, independent status. The division, in the 70s,
between the Faculties of Arts and of Social & Environmental Sciences, left
the Chair of Philosophy neatly balanced between - and the Professor is still ex
officio a member of both those Faculty Boards (though no longer of the
Faculty of Science). The Department’s programmes straddle three Faculties at
least - and a philosopher (Dr Lucy Frith) also holds a position in the Faculty
of Medicine. The Institute for Medicine, Law and Bioethics - a collaborative
venture between the Universities of Liverpool and Manchester - chooses to look entirely to Manchester for its
bioethicists. Howie's Institute of Feminist Theory and Practice,
supported by a grant from the Learning and Teaching Support Network (Philosophy
& Religious Studies: http://www.prs-ltsn.leeds.ac.uk),
is an interdisciplinary venture linking Liverpool
to Exeter and
the wider community. A recent appointment in Classics (Dr Catherine Osborne,
who departed to the University of East Anglia in 2003), the new Professor’s
interests and a Research Grant to Clark from the Leverhulme Trust (giving Dr Panayiota
Vassilopoulou an 18-month research fellowship for work on Plotinus) all
give us hope that the traditional link between Greek and Philosophy can be
sustained. Clark received a further grant from
the Leverhulme Trust for work on Plotinus, enabling the creation of a 3-year
lectureship to deal with his teaching: Dr Vassilopoulou took that job on, and
has been active in organising the annual meeting of the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies at
Liverpool in June 2004. Other European and
Indian connections may also be developed, perhaps with the help of our
part-timers (especially Bartley and Dr Robert Morrison).
Prof Mark
Siderits, supported by a Leverhulme Grant to Ganeri, has joined us for
two semesters during 2003-5.
In recognition of our
student numbers, in 2003 the University agreed to create an additional post: as
Ganeri and Dainton were absent in 2003-4, with AHRB support, a further
temporary post was created: Dr Piers Stephens and Dr Stephen
McLeod were appointed to one year positions. In December 2003, the new
post was advertized on a permanent basis, along with the post vice Moltmann: Dr
Hailwood and Dr McLeod were appointed.
In the following year another new post was created, and Dr Logi Gunnarson,
formerly of the Humboldt-Universität
zu Berlin, appointed.
Dr McGhee, now Senior Lecturer, took
on the Headship of the Department again. In his first year in office, he
secured Senior Lectureships for Drs Dainton and Howie, and a new post, filled
by Dr Logi Gunnarsson (2003-6). Dainton and Ganeri were granted personal
chairs. Phemister left for a readership in Edinburgh in 2005, and Dr Hill was appointed
to a one-year post. Another new post was filled by Dr Mary Leng, a philosopher of
mathematics from Cambridge, joining us in September 2006. Gunnarson departed in
the same year to a chair in Germany,
and Prof Ganeri, in 2007, to a Chair at Sussex. They were replaced by Dr Clare Carlisle and Dr
Vassilopoulou. In the latter’s absence to work on a research project for the Finnish Academy, Daniel Hill continued in post
as a temporary lecturer. The Department continues to change and develop, along
with the changing University, and to do so ever more rapidly! Dr McGhee has
retired to Papa Westray (see http://michaelmcghee.blogspot.com/),
and Dr Howie is Head of the Department – though McGhee has been brought back
again to serve as Acting Head during Howie’s illness.
In MacCunn’s day, it may
have seemed that Philosophy contained within itself the seeds for any number of
distinct disciplines (or else that MacCunn was versatile enough to try his hand
at many). It may be that we shall continue to supply other new disciplines with
staff and students, but we shall also continue to hope that the philosophical
tradition, whether ancient or modern, will provide a bridge between them, and a
source of knowledge and inspiration. That, at any rate, would be true to
MacCunn’s project, and the Town Meeting’s.
Bibliography
Calendars of University
College Liverpool 1881-1903; Calendars of University of Liverpool (1903- )
Crossley, Robert Olaf
Stapledon: Speaking for the Future (Liverpool University Press 1994)
Crossley, Robert ed., Talking
Across the World: the Love Letters of Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller,
1913-1919 (University Press of New England 1987)
Dorward, Cécile &
Davidson, Ron Anything but Ordinary: the nine lives of Cécile (Fremantle
Arts Centre Press 2000)
Hair, P.E.H., ed., Arts
Letters Society: the Faculty of Arts 1896-1996 (Liverpool University Press
1996)
Harrop, Sylvia Decade of
Change: the University of Liverpool 1981-1991 (Liverpool University Press
1994)
Jones, David R. The
Origins of Civic Universities: Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool (Routledge:
London 1988)
Kelly, Thomas The
Advancement of Learning: Liverpool University 1881-1981 (Liverpool
University Press 1981)
Mair, Alexander Philosophy
and Reality (Liverpool University Press 1911)
Research Reports of
University of Liverpool (1956- )
Truscott, Bruce Red
Brick University (Penguin: Harmondsorth 1951; 2nd edition)
Truscott, Bruce Redbrick
and these Vital Days (Faber: London 1945)
University of Liverpool
Archives (including Rathbone Papers, Burt Papers, Young Papers, and the
Stapledon Archive).
My thanks to Adrian Allan,
Raymond Frey, Fanchon Fröhlich, Paul Helm, Pamela Huby, Howard Robinson and
John Williamson for additional commentary.
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