"Personal influences include Paul Grice, John Mabbott and Gilbert Ryle" in that order

From

http://www.bookrags.com/tandf/flew-antony-tf/

Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers

D. G. Brown -- entry for "Flew"

"Personal influences include Paul Grice, John Mabbott and Gilbert Ryle" in that order --.

Other bits:

b: 11 February 1923, Cambridge, England.

But he was born in Ealing.

"Cat: Humanist; analytical philosopher."

"Educ:" "St John’s College, Oxford. Infls: Personal influences include Paul Grice, John Mabbott and Gilbert Ryle."

"Literary influences are": ... C.E.M.Joad, Joseph Needham.


Main publications (include)

"(1986) ‘Apologia pro philospohia mea’, in Stuart Shanker (ed.), Philosophy in Britain Today, London: Routledge."

(I actually found this at Blackwell's). A good read.

"He is ... an enthusiast for Darwin."

"It may have been Flew who brought the term ‘compatibilism’ into philosophical currency for this point of view. He has, however, subsequently come to deny a total causal determinism, which denial he refers to, with characteristic humour, as a ‘defection from full compatabilism’ (Flew 1986, p. 81)."

Funny-haha? Funny peculiar, more likely! I read and read it and cannot find it funny.

Incidentally, in the online, via googlebooks, "Philosophical Essays" there's this trio of examples he proposes as 'absurd':

--- 'bachelor husband' --- I understand that.
--- something else, and

--- "evidence of my own eyes" -- as absurd. I suppose the correct thing to say is "eye-witness"?

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