Sir Antony Flew
From ResearchID.org, a nexus for researching Intelligent Design
Flew was born in London in 1923, the son of a Methodist minister. He was educated at St. Faith's Preparatory School, Cambridge followed by Kingswood School, Bath. During the Second World War he studied Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, and was a Royal Air Force intelligence officer. After the war, Flew achieved a first class degree in Literae Humaniores at St John's College, Oxford. Flew was a graduate student of Gilbert Ryle, and one of the more prominent in the group identified with Oxford linguistic philosophy. An early point in his career was a 1954 debate with Michael Dummett over backward causation. He strongly defended Oxford philosophy against Ernest Gellner's attack on it in the book Words and Things, which he called a "juvenile work".
He was a Lecturer in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford from 1949 to 1950, and followed this with four years as a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen, and twenty years as Professor of Philosophy at the University of Keele. Between 1973 and 1983 he was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading, and on his retirement took up a half-time post for a few years at York University, Toronto.
He is principally known as a supporter of libertarianism and atheism, although in December 2004 he became a deist. In an interview[1] with Gary Habermas of Biola University he stated:
- Well, I don’t believe in the God of any revelatory system, although I am open to that. But it seems to me that the case for an Aristotelian God who has the characteristics of power and also intelligence, is now much stronger than it ever was before.
- ...
- I think that the most impressive arguments for God’s existence are those that are supported by recent scientific discoveries. I’ve never been much impressed by the kalam cosmological argument, and I don’t think it has gotten any stronger recently. However, I think the argument to Intelligent Design is enormously stronger than it was when I first met it.
He has later retracted some of his statements after intense criticism and ridicule. In a letter[2] to Richard Carrier 29 December 2004 he stated:
- I now realize that I have made a fool of myself by believing that there were no presentable theories of the development of inanimate matter up to the first living creature capable of reproduction.
Anthony Flew will accept the Phillip E. Johnson Award for Liberty and Truth award from Biola University May 11 2006 for "his lifelong commitment to free and open inquiry and to standing fast against intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression." When he was notified that he had received this award Flew said:[3] “In light of my work and publications in this area and the criticism I’ve received for changing my position, I appreciate receiving this award.”
Bibliography
- A New Approach to Psychical Research (1953)
- New Essays in Philosophical Theology (1955) editor with Alasdair Macintyre
- Essays in Conceptual Analysis (1956)
- Hume's Philosophy of Belief (1961)
- Logic And Language (1961) editor
- God and Philosophy (1966)
- Logic & Language (Second Series) (1966) editor
- Evolutionary Ethics (1967)
- An Introduction to Western Philosophy - Ideas and Argument from Plato to Sartre (1971)
- Body, Mind and Death (1973)
- Crime or Disease (1973)
- Thinking About Thinking (1975)
- Sociology, Equality and Education: Philosohical Essays In Defence Of A Variety Of Differences (1976)
- Thinking Straight (1977)
- A Dictionary of Philosophy (1979) editor, later edition with Stephen Priest
- Philosophy, an Introduction (1979)
- Libertarians versus Egalitarians (c.1980) pamphlet
- The Politics of Procrustes: contradictions of enforced equality (1981)
- Darwinian Evolution (1984)
- The Presumption of Atheism (1984)
- Examination not Attempted in Right Ahead, newspaper of the Conservative Monday Club, Conservative Party Conference edition, October 1985.
- God: A Critical Inquiry (1986) - reprint of God and Philosophy (1966) with new introduction
- Agency and Necessity (Great Debates in Philosophy) (1987) with Godfrey Norman Agmondis Vesey
- Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate (1987) with Gary Habermas
- Power to the Parents: Reversing Educational Decline (1987)
- Prophesy or Philosophy? Historicism or History? in Marx Refuted, edited by Ronald Duncan and Colin Wilson, Bath, (U.K.), 1987, ISBN 0-906798-71-X
- Readings in the Philosophical Problems of Parapsychology (1987) editor
- God, A Critical Inquiry (1988)
- Does God Exist?: A Believer and an Atheist Debate (1991) with Terry L. Miethe
- A Future for Anti-Racism? (Social Affairs Unit 1992) pamphlet
- Atheistic Humanism (1993)
- Thinking About Social Thinking (1995)
- Education for Citizenship (Studies in Education No. 10) (Institute of Economic Affairs, 2000)
- Merely Mortal? (2000)
- Does God Exist: The Craig-Flew Debate (2003) with William Lane Craig
- Social Life and Moral Judgment (2003)
- God and Philosophy (2005) - another reprint of God and Philosophy (1966) with another new introduction
