Peter Geach
Born(1916-03-29)29 March 1916
Chelsea, London
Died 21 December 2013(2013-12-21) (aged 97)
Era20th-century
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic philosophy
Main interestsPhilosophical logic, history of philosophy, philosophy of religion
Notable ideasAnalytical Thomism, Omnipotence paradox
Influenced by[show]
Thomas Aquinas, Ludwig Wittgenstein
Influenced
G. E. M. Anscombe (wife), Anthony Kenny, Alasdair MacIntyre
Peter Thomas Geach, (born 29 March 1916, died 21 December 2013) was a British philosopher. His areas of interest were the history of philosophy, philosophical logic, and the theory of identity.
Geach was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. He taught at the University of Birmingham from 1951 until 1966 when he was appointed Professor of Logic in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds.[1] Geach was given the title of Emeritus Professor of Logic on his retirement from Leeds in 1981.[2]
Geach was elected a Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) in 1965.[3]
He was awarded the papal cross "Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice" by the Holy See for his philosophical work.
Contents
[hide]
1 Thought
2 Personal life
3 Selected publications
4 See also
5 Footnotes
Thought[edit]
His early work includes the classic texts Mental Acts and Reference and Generality, the latter defending an essentially modern conception of reference against medieval theories of supposition.
His Catholic perspective is integral to his philosophy. He was perhaps the founder of Analytical Thomism (though the current of thought running through his and Elizabeth Anscombe's work to the present day was only ostensibly so named forty years later by John Haldane), the aim of which is to synthesise Thomistic and Analytic approaches. He defends the Thomistic position that human beings are essentially rational animals, each one miraculously created. He dismissed Darwinistic attempts to regard reason as inessential to humanity, as "mere sophistry, laughable, or pitiable." He repudiated any capacity for language in animals as mere "association of manual signs with things or performances."
Geach dismissed both pragmatic and epistemic conceptions of truth, commending a version of the correspondence theory proposed by Aquinas. He argues that there is one reality rooted in God himself, who is the ultimate truthmaker. God, according to Geach, is truth.
While they lived, he saw W.V. Quine and A. Prior as his allies, in that they held three truths: that there are no non-existent beings; that a proposition can occur in discourse without being there asserted; and that the sense of a term does not depend on the truth of the proposition in which it occurs.
He invented the famous ethical example of the stuck potholer, when arguing against the idea that it might be right to kill a child to save its mother.
Jenny Teichman, fellow of New Hall, Cambridge, has characterised Geach's philosophical style as "deliberately outrageous".[4]
Personal life[edit]
His wife and occasional collaborator was the noted philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar Elizabeth Anscombe.[1] Both converts to Roman Catholicism, they married in 1941 and had seven children.[5] They co-authored the 1961 book Three Philosophers, with Anscombe contributing a section on Aristotle and Geach one each on Aquinas and Gottlob Frege.[1] For a quarter century they were leading figures in the Philosophical Enquiry Group, an annual confluence of Catholic philosophers held at Spode House in Staffordshire that was established by Father Columba Ryan in 1954.[6]
Selected publications[edit]
(edited, with Max Black) Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, 1952/1960/1966
"Good and Evil," Analysis (1956)
Mental Acts: Their Content and Their Objects, 1957/1997
Three Philosophers: Aristotle; Aquinas; Frege (with G.E.M. Anscombe), 1961
Reference and Generality: An Examination of Some Medieval and Modern Theories, 1962
History of the corruptions of logic, inaugural lecture, University of Leeds, 1968
God and the Soul, 1969/2001
Logic Matters, 1972
Reason and Argument, 1976
"Saying and Showing in Frege and Wittgenstein," Acta Philosophica Fennica 28 (1976): 54–70
Truth, Love, and Immortality: An Introduction to McTaggart's Philosophy, 1979
(edited) Wittgenstein's Lectures on Philosophical Psychology, 1946–47: Notes by P.T. Geach, K.J. Shah, and A.C. Jackson, 1989
Logic and Ethics (edited by Jacek Holowka), 1990
Truth and Hope: The Furst Franz Josef und Furstin Gina Lectures Delivered at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein, 1998 (ISBN 0-268-04215-2)
See also[edit]
Omnipotence levels
Footnotes[edit]
^ Jump up to: a b c Boxer, Sarah (13 January 2001). "G. E. M. Anscombe, 81, British Philosopher". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 24 January 2010.
Jump up ^ University of Leeds, List of Emeritus Professors
Jump up ^ British Academy, List of Fellows
Jump up ^ Teichman, Jenny (10 February 1991). "Henry James Among the Philosophers". The New York Times (The New York Times Company). Retrieved 24 January 2010.
Jump up ^ "Professor G E M Anscombe". The Daily Telegraph (Telegraph Media Group). 6 January 2001.
Jump up ^ "Father Columba Ryan: priest, teacher and university chaplain". The Times (News Corporation). 19 August 2009. Retrieved 24 January 2010.
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VIAF: 108298621
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NameGeach, Peter
Alternative names
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Date of birth29 March 1916
Place of birthLondon
Date of death
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Peter_Geach&oldid=587225808"
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