Herbert Paul Grice, of Harborne, Warwickshire -- and James Opie Urmson, of Hornsea, Yorkshire.

Speranza

J. O. Urmson

4 March 1915 – 29 January 2012

James Opie Urmson MC died on 29 January 2012, aged 96.

Born in Hornsea, Yorkshire, Urmson was educated at Kingswood School, Bath, and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, graduating in Literae Humaniores and winning the John Locke Scholarship in 1938.

Urmson was elected a Senior Demy of Magdalen College in 1938 and a Fellow by Examination in 1939.

During the Second World War he served with the Duke of Wellington’s Regiment in France (including the withdrawal to Dunkirk), North Africa and Italy, where he was taken prisoner.

On liberation he returned to Oxford, where he was a lecturer then Student of Christ Church then (after five years as professor of philosophy at Dundee) fellow and tutor in philosophy at Corpus Christi College, from 1959 to 1978.

Urmson was also the Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Stanford.

Urmson published widely, and was particularly acclaimed for his papers on Greek and early Christian philosophy, language, ethics, aesthetics, and the history of philosophy.

He was survived by a daughter, his wife Marion (Drage) having predeceased him.