Australian philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition of the people of Australia and of its citizens abroad. Academic philosophy has been mostly pursued in universities (and sometimes seminaries). It has been broadly in the tradition of Anglo-American analytic philosophy, but has also had representatives of a diverse range of other schools, such as idealism, Catholic neo-scholasticism, Marxism, and continental, feminist and Asian philosophy.
Indigenous perspectives
Australian indigenous traditions attribute moral authority outside the individual to The Dreaming, which is bound up with the relation of human society to land.
Idealism
The earliest academic philosophers in Australia were appointed in the late nineteenth century. Then and in the early twentieth century, most were like their European contemporaries idealists. They included Sir Francis Anderson, professor of philosophy at Sydney University from 1890 to 1921, W. R. Boyce Gibson in Melbourne, and (to a degree) Sir William Mitchell in Adelaide.
Francis Anderson established the Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy in 1923. From 1947 it bifurcated and the philosophy part has been published as the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
John Anderson
Sydney philosophy was dominated in the mid-twentieth century by the Scottish immigrant John Anderson, Challis Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University from 1927 to 1958. He developed a complete realist philosophy that contrasted with the linguistic philosophy then developing in other parts of the English-speaking world.: ch1-2 His controversial atheism and his view that there was no such thing as moral obligation attracted condemnation, and through his students had an influence on the Sydney Push and other libertarian currents of the 1960s.: ch8
Melbourne philosophy
Philosophy at Melbourne University was more diverse than in Sydney but in the mid-twentieth century heavily influenced by Wittgenstein.: ch7 Prominent Melbourne Wittgensteinians included George Paul and Douglas Gasking.
Australian realism
Australian philosophers have typically taken a realist view of entities mentioned in science, such as forces, causes, minds and properties or universals (as opposed to considering them mere mental entities or ways of speaking or social constructions). Partly through the influence of John Anderson, realism has been stronger in Australia than in comparable countries such as the US and UK.: 323–9
D. M. Armstrong's 1978 Universals and Scientific Realism defended realism about universals, arguing that, for example, the property of being blue must be a reality common to all blue things.Graham Nerlich argued in The Shape of Space (1976) that space is not merely relational properties of distance but a real entity in itself.
In the philosophy of mathematics, Australian realisms include the Platonism of Mark Colyvan and the Aristotelian realism of the "Sydney School".
Philosophy of mind and Australian materialism
Australian materialism, or the identity theory of mind was developed by U.T. Place and J.J.C. Smart in Adelaide in the 1950s. In contrast to dualist theories holding that the mind is a separate substance, and to the then popular behaviorism that held that there was nothing to the mental beyond observable behaviours, materialism regarded the mind as just brain processes. The classic statement of the view came in D.M. Armstrong's 1968 book, A Materialist Theory of the Mind.: 180–3
Australians have also been prominent among critics of materialism. Frank Jackson's influential thought experiment "What Mary knew" imagines a scientist who, restricted to seeing black and white, studies colour vision; she later comes to see blue, giving her experience of colour beyond knowing physical facts about it. Therefore, Jackson concluded, there was more to the mental than just the physical (but he later rejected the argument).David Chalmers argues that materialism has failed to make progress on the hard problem of consciousness: how to give an account of qualia or felt experience in purely physical terms.: 184–8
In more recent work, Peter Godfrey-Smith in his 2016 book Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness inquires into the extent and origins of consciousness in species very unlike humans.
Ethics
In his 1977 book Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong John Anderson's student John Mackie defended an "error theory" of morality, holding that the idea of moral obligation was a mistake.
Peter Singer's 1975 book Animal Liberation was influential in moves against eating and experimenting on animals. His views on bioethics, including the permissibility of killing even non-disabled babies, have attracted controversy and protests.: 413–24
Many Australian philosophers defended more traditional and objectivist theories of morality, including Catholic scholastic philosophers,: ch4 Raimond Gaita, John Finnis and Jenny Teichman.: 402–8
Philosophy of religion
Traditional Thomism dominated Catholic seminary education up to the 1960s and was also taught to the laity by such teachers as Austin Woodbury: ch4
John Anderson's promotion of atheism was continued by John Mackie in his 1981 book, The Miracle of Theism. More recently, Graham Oppy has defended atheism in a series of books such as Atheism: The Basics (2018).
Some Australian philosophers have developed non-standard views of God, such as Samuel Alexander in Space, Time and Deity (1920) and Peter Forrest in Developmental Theism (2007).
The philosophy of religion journal Sophia, founded by Max Charlesworth in Melbourne in 1962, has published widely on Eastern as well as Western approaches to religion.
Environmental philosophy
John Passmore's 1974 book, Man's Responsibility for Nature argued for a "shallow" view of environmental responsibility, involving no radical changes to a traditional scientific viewpoint and ethical frameworks. On the other hand, Richard Sylvan and Val Plumwood were early leaders in moves towards deep ecology, which attributed an intrinsic value to nature, independent of human concerns.: ch13
See also
- Australasian Association of Philosophy
- Australasian Journal of Philosophy
- Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy
- Canberra Plan
- Bruces' Philosophers Song
References
- Charlesworth, Max (2010). "Australian aboriginal philosophy". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2011-08-12. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Morris Miller, E. (1929). "The beginnings of philosophy in Australia and the work of Henry Laurie". Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy. 7 (4): 241–251. doi:10.1080/00048402908541291. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Franklin, James (2003). "ch6". Corrupting the Youth: A history of philosophy in Australia. Sydney: Macleay Press. ISBN 1876492082.
- Davies, Martin; Helgeby, Stein (2010). "Idealism". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2012-03-08. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Davies, Martin; Helgeby, Stein (2014), Oppy, Graham; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.), "Idealist Origins: 1920s and Before", History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand, Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, pp. 15–54, doi:10.1007/978-94-007-6958-8_2, ISBN 978-94-007-6958-8, retrieved 2022-05-30
- Davies, W. Martin. "William Mitchell (1861-1962)". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Davies, W. Martin (1999-09-01). "Sir William Mitchell and the 'new mysterianism'". Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 77 (3): 253–273. doi:10.1080/00048409912349031. ISSN 0004-8402.
- Candlish, Stewart (2021). "The first hundred years of (The) Australasian Journal of Philosophy". Australasian Journal of Philosophy. 99: 3–24. doi:10.1080/00048402.2020.1871385. S2CID 234036787. Retrieved 22 July 2021.
- Cole, Creagh M. (2017). "John Anderson". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Baker, A.J. (1986). Australian Realism: The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521320518.
- Coady, C.A.J. (2010). "Melbourne, University of". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- David Malet Armstrong, "Black Swans: The formative influences in Australian philosophy", in B. Brogaard and B. Smith, eds., Rationality and Irrationality: Proceedings of the 23rd International Wittgenstein Symposium, Vienna, 2000.
- Khlentzos, Drew (2010). "Melbourne, University of". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2011-07-20. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Keller, Philipp (2010). "Universals". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2011-08-12.
- Smart, J.J.C. (2007). "The mind/brain identity theory". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Jackson, Frank (1982). "Epiphenomenal qualia" (PDF). Philosophical Quarterly. 32 (127): 127–136. doi:10.2307/2960077. JSTOR 2960077. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Trakakis, N.N. (2010). "Philosophy of religion". In Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (eds.). Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (1st ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 978-0-9806512-0-1. Archived from the original on 2011-08-12. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
- Hyde, Dominic; Casati, Filippo; Weber, Zach (2019). "Richard Sylvan (Routley)". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 30 June 2021.
Bibliography
- Brown, Robert; Rollins, C.D., eds. (1969). Contemporary Philosophy in Australia. London: Allen & Unwin. ISBN 0041000196.
- Grave, Selwyn A. (1984). A History of Philosophy in Australia. St Lucia: University of Queensland Press. ISBN 0702216976.
- Srzednicki, Jan T.J; Wood, David, eds. (1992). Essays on Philosophy in Australia. Nijhoff International Philosophy Series. Vol. 46. Dordrecht: Springer. doi:10.1007/978-94-015-8006-9. ISBN 978-0-7923-1695-4.
- Dowe, Phil; Nicholls, Moira; Shotton, Leila, eds. (1996). Australian Philosophers. Hobart: Pyrrho Press. ISBN 0859016803.
- Franklin, James (2003). Corrupting the Youth: A History of Philosophy in Australia. Sydney: Macleay Press. ISBN 1876492082.
- Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N., eds. (2011). The Antipodean Philosopher: Public Lectures on Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. Lanham Md: Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739167939.
- Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N. (2014). A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand (2nd ed.). Melbourne: Monash University Publishing. ISBN 9781921867712.
- Oppy, G.; Trakakis, N.N., eds. (2014). History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand. New York: Springer. ISBN 9789400769571.
External links
- Australasian Association of Philosophy homepage
- Philosophy programs in Australasian universities
- Godfrey-Smith, Peter (2019-03-19). "Why does Australia have an outsized influence on philosophy?". Aeon. Retrieved 2019-03-21.
- D.M. Armstrong, Black Swans: The formative influences in Australian philosophy
- David Stove, Why have philosophers? (review of S. Grave, History of Philosophy in Australia, 1985)
- ABC Radio National: The Philosopher's Zone
- Philpapers category 'Australasian philosophy, misc'
- Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy
Australian philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition of the people of Australia and of its citizens abroad Academic philosophy has been mostly pursued in universities and sometimes seminaries It has been broadly in the tradition of Anglo American analytic philosophy but has also had representatives of a diverse range of other schools such as idealism Catholic neo scholasticism Marxism and continental feminist and Asian philosophy Indigenous perspectivesAustralian indigenous traditions attribute moral authority outside the individual to The Dreaming which is bound up with the relation of human society to land IdealismThe earliest academic philosophers in Australia were appointed in the late nineteenth century Then and in the early twentieth century most were like their European contemporaries idealists They included Sir Francis Anderson professor of philosophy at Sydney University from 1890 to 1921 W R Boyce Gibson in Melbourne and to a degree Sir William Mitchell in Adelaide Francis Anderson established the Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy in 1923 From 1947 it bifurcated and the philosophy part has been published as the Australasian Journal of Philosophy John AndersonJohn Anderson 1926 Sydney philosophy was dominated in the mid twentieth century by the Scottish immigrant John Anderson Challis Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University from 1927 to 1958 He developed a complete realist philosophy that contrasted with the linguistic philosophy then developing in other parts of the English speaking world ch1 2 His controversial atheism and his view that there was no such thing as moral obligation attracted condemnation and through his students had an influence on the Sydney Push and other libertarian currents of the 1960s ch8 Melbourne philosophyPhilosophy at Melbourne University was more diverse than in Sydney but in the mid twentieth century heavily influenced by Wittgenstein ch7 Prominent Melbourne Wittgensteinians included George Paul and Douglas Gasking Australian realismAustralian philosophers have typically taken a realist view of entities mentioned in science such as forces causes minds and properties or universals as opposed to considering them mere mental entities or ways of speaking or social constructions Partly through the influence of John Anderson realism has been stronger in Australia than in comparable countries such as the US and UK 323 9 D M Armstrong s 1978 Universals and Scientific Realism defended realism about universals arguing that for example the property of being blue must be a reality common to all blue things Graham Nerlich argued in The Shape of Space 1976 that space is not merely relational properties of distance but a real entity in itself In the philosophy of mathematics Australian realisms include the Platonism of Mark Colyvan and the Aristotelian realism of the Sydney School Philosophy of mind and Australian materialismAustralian materialism or the identity theory of mind was developed by U T Place and J J C Smart in Adelaide in the 1950s In contrast to dualist theories holding that the mind is a separate substance and to the then popular behaviorism that held that there was nothing to the mental beyond observable behaviours materialism regarded the mind as just brain processes The classic statement of the view came in D M Armstrong s 1968 book A Materialist Theory of the Mind 180 3 David Chalmers Australians have also been prominent among critics of materialism Frank Jackson s influential thought experiment What Mary knew imagines a scientist who restricted to seeing black and white studies colour vision she later comes to see blue giving her experience of colour beyond knowing physical facts about it Therefore Jackson concluded there was more to the mental than just the physical but he later rejected the argument David Chalmers argues that materialism has failed to make progress on the hard problem of consciousness how to give an account of qualia or felt experience in purely physical terms 184 8 In more recent work Peter Godfrey Smith in his 2016 book Other Minds The Octopus the Sea and the Deep Origins of Consciousness inquires into the extent and origins of consciousness in species very unlike humans EthicsIn his 1977 book Ethics Inventing Right and Wrong John Anderson s student John Mackie defended an error theory of morality holding that the idea of moral obligation was a mistake Peter Singer s 1975 book Animal Liberation was influential in moves against eating and experimenting on animals His views on bioethics including the permissibility of killing even non disabled babies have attracted controversy and protests 413 24 Many Australian philosophers defended more traditional and objectivist theories of morality including Catholic scholastic philosophers ch4 Raimond Gaita John Finnis and Jenny Teichman 402 8 Philosophy of religionTraditional Thomism dominated Catholic seminary education up to the 1960s and was also taught to the laity by such teachers as Austin Woodbury ch4 John Anderson s promotion of atheism was continued by John Mackie in his 1981 book The Miracle of Theism More recently Graham Oppy has defended atheism in a series of books such as Atheism The Basics 2018 Some Australian philosophers have developed non standard views of God such as Samuel Alexander in Space Time and Deity 1920 and Peter Forrest in Developmental Theism 2007 The philosophy of religion journal Sophia founded by Max Charlesworth in Melbourne in 1962 has published widely on Eastern as well as Western approaches to religion Environmental philosophyJohn Passmore s 1974 book Man s Responsibility for Nature argued for a shallow view of environmental responsibility involving no radical changes to a traditional scientific viewpoint and ethical frameworks On the other hand Richard Sylvan and Val Plumwood were early leaders in moves towards deep ecology which attributed an intrinsic value to nature independent of human concerns ch13 See alsoAustralasian Association of Philosophy Australasian Journal of Philosophy Australasian Society for Continental Philosophy Canberra Plan Bruces Philosophers SongReferencesCharlesworth Max 2010 Australian aboriginal philosophy In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2011 08 12 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Morris Miller E 1929 The beginnings of philosophy in Australia and the work of Henry Laurie Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy 7 4 241 251 doi 10 1080 00048402908541291 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Franklin James 2003 ch6 Corrupting the Youth A history of philosophy in Australia Sydney Macleay Press ISBN 1876492082 Davies Martin Helgeby Stein 2010 Idealism In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2012 03 08 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Davies Martin Helgeby Stein 2014 Oppy Graham Trakakis N N eds Idealist Origins 1920s and Before History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand Dordrecht Springer Netherlands pp 15 54 doi 10 1007 978 94 007 6958 8 2 ISBN 978 94 007 6958 8 retrieved 2022 05 30 Davies W Martin William Mitchell 1861 1962 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 30 June 2021 Davies W Martin 1999 09 01 Sir William Mitchell and the new mysterianism Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 3 253 273 doi 10 1080 00048409912349031 ISSN 0004 8402 Candlish Stewart 2021 The first hundred years of The Australasian Journal of Philosophy Australasian Journal of Philosophy 99 3 24 doi 10 1080 00048402 2020 1871385 S2CID 234036787 Retrieved 22 July 2021 Cole Creagh M 2017 John Anderson Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 30 June 2021 Baker A J 1986 Australian Realism The Systematic Philosophy of John Anderson Cambridge Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521320518 Coady C A J 2010 Melbourne University of In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2011 07 20 Retrieved 30 June 2021 David Malet Armstrong Black Swans The formative influences in Australian philosophy in B Brogaard and B Smith eds Rationality and Irrationality Proceedings of the 23rd International Wittgenstein Symposium Vienna 2000 Khlentzos Drew 2010 Melbourne University of In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2011 07 20 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Keller Philipp 2010 Universals In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2011 08 12 Smart J J C 2007 The mind brain identity theory Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 30 June 2021 Jackson Frank 1982 Epiphenomenal qualia PDF Philosophical Quarterly 32 127 127 136 doi 10 2307 2960077 JSTOR 2960077 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Trakakis N N 2010 Philosophy of religion In Oppy G Trakakis N N eds Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 1st ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 978 0 9806512 0 1 Archived from the original on 2011 08 12 Retrieved 30 June 2021 Hyde Dominic Casati Filippo Weber Zach 2019 Richard Sylvan Routley Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Retrieved 30 June 2021 BibliographyBrown Robert Rollins C D eds 1969 Contemporary Philosophy in Australia London Allen amp Unwin ISBN 0041000196 Grave Selwyn A 1984 A History of Philosophy in Australia St Lucia University of Queensland Press ISBN 0702216976 Srzednicki Jan T J Wood David eds 1992 Essays on Philosophy in Australia Nijhoff International Philosophy Series Vol 46 Dordrecht Springer doi 10 1007 978 94 015 8006 9 ISBN 978 0 7923 1695 4 Dowe Phil Nicholls Moira Shotton Leila eds 1996 Australian Philosophers Hobart Pyrrho Press ISBN 0859016803 Franklin James 2003 Corrupting the Youth A History of Philosophy in Australia Sydney Macleay Press ISBN 1876492082 Oppy G Trakakis N N eds 2011 The Antipodean Philosopher Public Lectures on Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand Lanham Md Lexington Books ISBN 9780739167939 Oppy G Trakakis N N 2014 A Companion to Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand 2nd ed Melbourne Monash University Publishing ISBN 9781921867712 Oppy G Trakakis N N eds 2014 History of Philosophy in Australia and New Zealand New York Springer ISBN 9789400769571 External linksAustralasian Association of Philosophy homepage Philosophy programs in Australasian universities Godfrey Smith Peter 2019 03 19 Why does Australia have an outsized influence on philosophy Aeon Retrieved 2019 03 21 D M Armstrong Black Swans The formative influences in Australian philosophy David Stove Why have philosophers review of S Grave History of Philosophy in Australia 1985 ABC Radio National The Philosopher s Zone Philpapers category Australasian philosophy misc Australasian Society of Legal Philosophy
