Stanley Victor Keeling

Stanley Victor Keeling
Born 9 August 1894
Islington, England
Died 28 November 1979
Paris, France
Nationality British
Occupation Philosopher
Notable work Descartes

Stanley Victor Keeling (1894-1979), usually cited as S.V. Keeling, was a British philosopher, formerly a Reader at University College London (UCL). He is best known for his 1934 monograph Descartes, printed in a second edition in 1968, which for decades served as the standard English introduction to the philosophy of Descartes.[1][2] Keeling is also known for his 1934 annotated edition of Philosophical Studies by J. M. E. McTaggart. Honoring his passion for ancient, especially Greek, philosophy the UCL Department of Philosophy administer an annual memorial lecture, biennial colloquium and a postgraduate scholarship in Ancient Philosophy in his name.[3]

Biography

Stanley Keeling was born in Islington on 9 August 1894 and studied at Southend Secondary School in Essex, where he remained until c.1911.[1]

As a conscientious objector to World War I, Keeling refused to submit to conscription as demanded by the Military Service Act 1916. He was thus arrested and convicted in court martial in January 1917. He was incarcerated at Wormwood Scrubs and, later, at Dartmoor, being released not long before 10 April 1919.[1]

In June 1919 Keeling enrolled at University College London but it was not until October 1920 that he took on an advised curriculum. This was under George Dawes Hicks[1] who, in 1904, had become the first appointed Professor of Moral Philosophy at UCL (the Chair having previously gone unfilled[4]). After his death, Keeling would describe Hicks as a teacher "wholly engrossed in philosophy" who "firmly believed that it, as no other subject, could impart to his students an influence and a training such as would render them habitually reflective about their existence and destiny".[5]

Keeling was befriended by Bertrand Russell who, along with Alfred North Whitehead, convinced him to continue his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge.[1][2] He was admitted to the same in October 1922 and awarded his BA there in 1924. The philosophy taught at Cambridge at the time was, however, largely a disappointment to him.[2] The sole exception reportedly being J. M. E. McTaggart who Keeling "held in the highest esteem as the only original metaphysician" of the century.[6] Richard Wollheim. a later colleague at UCL from 1949, described Keeling as "a disciple of McTaggart who thought him right "on nearly all topics" (apart from "one which left.. a bitter taste" - whilst Keeling was a pacifist, "McTaggart was rabidly militaristic").[7]

Keeling was then to spend two years studying in France. He first attended the University of Toulouse where he was awarded a certificat d'études supérieures, then the University of Montpellier, where, in 1925, he presented his thesis La nature de l'expérience chez Kant et chez Bradley (which Russell is known to have read[8]) and was awarded his Docteur ès Lettres (D. ès L.). Keeling was also to be honored in France as an officier d' Académie.[1] The scholar's obituary in The Times noted that although philosophy was his "consuming passion from early adolescence" Keeling "found a second love in the wine and food and conversation of France". And that during his working life "he returned whenever possible to France, to Provence or to his splendid apartment in... Paris".[2] (Indeed Richard Wollheim described Keeling as having lived in Paris and come over weekly to deliver his lectures[7]).

It is recorded in Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies that, in 1925, Keeling received a letter from Russell in recommendation for a post in philosophy[9] - the online records of the Bertrand Russell Archives at McMasters University clarify that the same is dated 20 December of that year and is not so much a letter but a testimonial.[10] Keeling was awarded a degree of MA with distinction by UCL in 1926.[1] Declining a fellowship at Harvard University, Keeling took up a position as a philosophy lecturer at UCL in 1927 where he was successively appointed as senior lecturer and then reader.[1] University College London would also award Keeling a D. Litt. As was noted in his obituary, Keeling's combination of the Docteur ès Lettres and Doctor Litterarum was an "unusual distinction".[2] The latter was awarded in 1939[11] - at the end of the decade during which Keeling had published his most famous scholarly works - and shortly before the outbreak of World War II.

Wollheim recalls that A.J. Ayer (who was at UCL as Grote Professor from 1944 until 1959) liked Keeling, and particularly. talking to him in French but that "the feeling was not reciprocated". On the announcement of Keeling's decision to retire, Ayer paid for an expensive dinner in his honor but that Keeling "without waiting for Freddie's panegyric, announced to us all that he had been chased out of philosophy by some new wave, of which 'you' he said pointing at Freddie, 'are a major agent—no', he went on, 'I flatter you, you could never be more than a minor agent'". Ayer, Wollhein reports, was amused: "'What a rogue' he used to say afterwards—'rogue' being quite a term of endearment which he applied to most of his older philosophical colleagues in the other London colleges".[7]

The Times obituary report's that Keeling's "thirst for depth and precision" could be satisfied "only precariously among his philosophical colleagues at London". But that he had found "some relief" whilst employed at UCL through the conversations he had had with Émile Meyerson, Leon Robin and Etienne Gilson during his frequent returns to France. (The latter of which he had described in Descartes as a "prince among Cartesian scholars".[12]) Keeling retired in 1954 to Paris with his wife and died there on 28 November 1979.[13]

Select Bibliography

  • Logic and Reasoning (1929). Published by Ernest Benn Ltd., (London) as no.83 in Benn's Sixpenny Library series.
  • Descartes[12] (1934; 2nd edn, Oxford, 1968). (Ed. with intro.)
  • Philosophical Studies by the Late J. MIL E. McTaggart[6] (1934; repr. with a new Introduction by Gerald Rochelle, Bristol, 1996).
  • 'Descartes: Annual Lecture on a Master Mind. Henriette Hertz Trust of the British Academy', Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 34 (1948), pp. 57–81; and separately as monograph (1948).
  • Time and Duration: An Unfinished Essay, ed. by Gerald Rochelle with a foreword and introduction by Edward Senior (Little Wenlock, 1990).

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Chávez-Arvizo, Enrique (2005). Brown, Stuart, ed. KEELING, Stanley Victor (1894-1979). The Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British philosophers. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum. pp. 502–503. ISBN 9781843710967. OCLC 58455514.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Anonymous (15 December 1979). "DR S. V. KEELING .. Lone path in philosophy". The Times. p. 14.
  3. ↑ "History". www.ucl.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
  4. ↑ Jonathan, Wolff, (2006). "Philosophy at University College London: Part 1: From Jeremy Bentham to the Second World War". sas-space.sas.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-02-14.
  5. ↑ Keeling, S. V. (1941). "George Dawes Hicks". Mind. 50 (199): 306–309. JSTOR 2250986.
  6. 1 2 1866-1925., McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis, (2000). Philosophical studies. Keeling, S. V. (Stanley Victor), 1894-1979. South Bend, Ind.: St Augustine's Press. ISBN 1890318914. OCLC 42771790.
  7. 1 2 3 "Ayer: the Man, the Philosopher, the Teacher". A.J. Ayer memorial essays. Ayer, A. J. (Alfred Jules), 1910-1989., Griffiths, A. Phillips,. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press. 1991. p. 21. ISBN 0521422469. OCLC 24504740.
  8. ↑ Blackwell, Kenneth (1987-12-31). "Addenda to the Checklist of Theses and Dissertations on Bertrand Russell". Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. 7 (2). doi:10.15173/russell.v7i2.1715. ISSN 1913-8032.
  9. ↑ Spadoni, Carl (1981-06-30). "Recent Acquisitions: Correspondence". Russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies. 1 (1). doi:10.15173/russell.v1i1.1524. ISSN 1913-8032.
  10. ↑ "55541 | BRACERS". bracers.mcmaster.ca. Retrieved 2018-02-10.
  11. ↑ The eudemian ethics on the voluntary, friendship, and luck : the Sixth S.V. Keeling Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy. Leigh, Fiona. Leiden: Brill. 2012. Preface. ISBN 9789004225367. OCLC 799762613.
  12. 1 2 Keeling, S. V. (Stanley Victor) (1970). Descartes. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0837142490. OCLC 123724.
  13. ↑ Perspectives on Greek philosophy : S.V. Keeling Memorial Lectures in ancient philosophy 1992-2002. Sharples, R. W.,. Abingdon, Oxon. 2003. Preface. ISBN 9781138707856. OCLC 1013888919.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.