The Dawn of Recovery
But the low-key 50th anniversary was typical of the Society's fortunes at that time. To a newcomer, it exuded the atmosphere of a once-revered, learned body fallen on hard times. Eking out an obscure existence, remembering past glories but no longer able to match them, like someone in genteel poverty trying to preserve a former status and dignity. The days of the active involvement of such as Bertrand Russell and C.E.M. Joad were still alive in the memory of those who kept the Society going, but where were those days now?
A few distinguished names still graced the Society. Professors George Catlin and John MacMurray, Sir Cyril Burt, and the Dean of St. Paul's, the Very Rev. W. R. Matthews, were Vice-Presidents; and the Rt. Rev. F. R. Barry, Bishop of Southwell, was an Honorary Fellow. The last two were the eminent authors of books on Christian Apologetics and Christian Ethics respectively. Other than lending their names to the Society, however, they took no active part.
The President at the time was the Rev. Dr F. H. Cleobury. A former high-ranking Civil Servant, he had gained a London Ph.D. in later life with a thesis on the 'bearing of Philosophy on Christian Theism' and became, in two apparently influential books, a noted advocate of the case for a return to a Natural Theology based on rational grounds for belief in God. Now in his retirement years, as a parish priest in Hertfordshire, he could be said to embody in himself the spirit which had originally brought the Society into being: that of the amateur philosopher prepared to apply himself with intellectual rigour to the pursuit of scholarship.
He also exemplified what, to judge from the preponderance of articles and reviews in The Philosopher, appeared to be the guiding light of the Society at that time: a preoccupation with exploring and expounding the metaphysics of Christianity. In fact, an unusually high proportion of the Society's membership in those days seems to have been clergy and ministers of various Christian denominations. The question arises: was it the Society's obvious interest in theology that drew such members to it, or was it the other way round - that a large number of Churchmen in its ranks and leadership transformed and determined the main topics of discussion?
Wherever the answer lies, there lurks the - perhaps unkind - suspicion that the attraction of the Society for at least some clergy and ministers in the years preceding this period, may have had something to do with the award of the Society's Associateship and Fellowship diplomas. In the days when opportunities for degrees were much rarer than now (this was before the advent of the Open University and the subsequent explosion of higher education) there must have been ordained men, trained in theological colleges to the minimum certificate standard laid down by their denominations, who felt disadvantaged in standing up in front of their congregations and in the company of their more privileged graduate colleagues without an academic hood, or whose headed notepaper looked bare without letters after their name. 'A.Ph.S.' and 'F.Ph.S.', with their gowns and, in the latter case, a hood as well! may well have seemed a desirable and achievable way of making up the deficiency. And at the time these qualifications were relatively easy to come by - not, it must be stressed, in any underhanded way such as merely buying the awards, but because the Society's examination structure was, it has to be admitted, fairly undemanding.
The quarter-century covered by this chapter is, in effect, the story of a few dedicated personalities. In the first place there were those long-standing office-holders and Council members, most with little or no qualification or practice in philosophy as a discipline, who faithfully carried on, keeping the day-to-day affairs of the Society going. Their selfless loyalty was admirable, even as one wonders at their motivation. What was their conception of philosophy, what was their expectation of it and their reward - apart from the attraction and satisfaction of being at the helm of what they liked to feel was still a distinguished body with congenial objects?
Secondly, there were a few new arrivals in the Society's ranks, with some background in academic philosophy, who quickly saw the need to breathe new life into a body which perhaps, to them, was in a run-down state of mediocrity and to restore some academic credibility to it. They readily recognised the special nature of the Society - that it had never been meant to be a high-powered and rarefied equivalent to, say, the Aristotelian Society or the Mind Association, but rather a medium for introducing philosophy to, and encouraging its pursuit from the ground up by, the keen amateur. Nevertheless, in order to achieve its objectives it had to be able to hold its head up reputably in the field.
It happened that the early years of the period saw the death, or the fading from the active scene through age or ill-health, of a number of formerly key figures. Chairman of Council the Rev. Dr Albert Belden, Minister of Whitefield's Tabernacle in London, died in 1964. Leslie Eaton had been a dynamic General Secretary for four and a half years before his death in 1967. Victor Rienaecker gave up his Editorship of The Philosopher, and Dr Frank Kinder, (M.Sc., Ph.D., F.Ph.S.) a pillar of the Society whose service was recognised by a Vice-Presidency, Vice-Chairmanship of Council and an Honorary Life Fellowship, retired from his long-held office of Senior Tutor and Chief Examiner of the study courses. Virtually the only continuity among the officers lay with Rupert Judge, who kept up his devoted work as Registrar and Treasurer right to his demise in 1986, when his widow Betty took up his mantle.
Dr Kinder had been a multi-faceted stalwart of the Society who, in addition to his tutorial and examining role, single-handedly edited and published from his home in Cheshire a periodical, effectively a rival Journal, News and Comments, later retitled Views and Comments. This publication, while given the blessing of the Society's Council, was financed almost wholly from Dr Kinder's own pocket. It was simply produced, consisting of 12-16 (later up to 28) pages of duplicated close typescript on folded foolscap paper within a pale blue card cover.
If the Society's Golden Anniversary had elsewhere passed almost unnoticed Dr Kinder made up for it in a big way: "50 years of philosophy for the ordinary man", News and Comments proclaimed on the cover, and in addition to issues dated January and February 1963 there were that year Autumn and Special Autumn editions, Jubilee Year, Special Jubilee editions on Science and Religion and a Final Jubilee edition as well as October and Christmas issues. Although the effect was spoilt somewhat by Dr Kinder calling the occasion the "bi-centenary", as he subsequently acknowledged, in error.
When the publication metamorphosed into Views and Comments it carried on the front cover the logo of an open book with, inscribed upon it in Latin and English, "Knowledge rules, Wisdom guides, Religion corrects", and as a subtitle: "A journal through which you may express your religious, scientific and philosophical views". (Note that "religious" comes first.) Dr Kinder repeatedly and somewhat cryptically called philosophy "Reason seen through the eyes of the soul", and spoke often of "spiritual philosophy". There was a coterie of regular contributors including the Society's President, Dr Cleobury (whose name was consistently misspelt as "Cloebury"); Dr Brian Pamplin of Bristol, a scientist who argued passionately for a scientifically-acceptable Christianity and a new Bible reflecting modern "truth", and devotional poems by Sir John Anderson, Bernard Wilmott, the Rev. Gerald Ferroussat and Miss Frances Baron. A frequent contributor was Dr Wand, Bishop of London. Dr Kinder encouraged running discussions of the papers, and there were occasional treatments of Plato and Aristotle, Spinoza, Leibniz and Kant.
Between about 1967 and 1970 an almost wholly new team found itself running the Society. Following Dr Belden's death the Chairmanship changed hands twice in less than two years. Belden's immediate successor, the Rev. Albert E. Paterson, having taken office in 1965, was, rather abruptly it seems, replaced by the Spring of 1967, a move for which no recorded reason can be discovered. His name continued to feature until 1969 on lists of Council members and even as a Deputy Chairman, but in his absence. Certainly his own message introducing himself to the readership of The Philosopher in the autumn of 1965 strikes a strangely incongruous note; its style stirs doubts about his literacy, let alone his scholarship. He claimed to be a very long-standing member of the Society and to have been awarded the Society's Fellowship twenty-one years previously (that would have been in 1944). The Philosopher, however, normally very punctilious in printing academic letters after names, lists him in 1963 without any, yet by 1965 he is shown as 'B.D., Psy. D. (sic), F.Ph.S.' In any case, he was succeeded by the Rev. John Griffiths, whose urbane and friendly Chairmanship continued until his retirement in 1975.
The first of the reforming newcomers was Alan Holloway, who joined in 1963 and later produced a scheme for new academic regulations and a new syllabus for the Associateship and Fellowship, which came into effect in January 1969.
The Open University had by now been established, and new Universities and other institutions of higher education, part-time as well as full-time, were proliferating. In colleges of education, teacher training was now a three-year course and teaching was about to become a graduate profession with the introduction of the B.Ed. degree. There was thus a different climate from earlier days when for many, opportunities in higher education had been largely non-existent and any accreditation, however modest, had been a distinction.
At this time, the Society's Associateship, which previously had been tested by a single paper of six questions to be completed at home within three months, became more rigorous. Although as before no minimum entry qualification was laid down, it was divided into six papers to be sat under supervised examination conditions, after tuition conducted by correspondence with tutors. Holloway recruited his own team of tutors and examiners, mainly from among his professional colleagues and former students, and this was extended when he became a Principal Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at a college of education, teaching for the University of Bristol.
One who did not, however, have that previous connection with him was the Rev. Everett Davies, a Baptist minister who became a tutor and examiner in 1970. He was, in many ways, an example of just the kind of person for whom the Philosophical Society should exist. Born in a Welsh village, he began work at the age of fourteen in the mining industry but undertook many evening classes and correspondence courses before and after war service in the Royal Navy. By 1952 he was a full-time student at Coleg Harlech, followed by Baptist College, University College, Cardiff, and Mansfield College, Oxford.
His academic study of philosophy, combined with his own dogged experience of learning the hard way from the grass roots, was invaluable to the Society. When Holloway took over the Editorship of The Philosopher in 1972, after the death of the Rev. A. J. Sinclair Burton, he succeeded as Director of Studies. Together they continued their efforts to raise the standards of the Society, one with further revisions to the syllabus and examination patterns, the other in the content and style of the Journal, which remained the Society's crucial 'shop window'.
As a shop window, what range of wares did The Philosopher display in these years? As the second half of the Philosophical Society's first century began, Victor Rienaecker was nearing the end of his Editorship, but his gentle and cultured mind produced for the Golden Jubilee issue, in addition to his own lecture on John Dewey, the last published paper before his death of Sir Harry Lindsay, former Chairman of the Royal Society of Arts, on 'The Philosophy of Christianity', by which he meant, he said, the 'philosophy of the human life and how it is to be lived'. The issue also included a robust essay by the Society's President, F. H. Cleobury, on 'Some finalities in the philosophy of theism', which, though centering on the earlier Oxford idealism of Green, Bradley and Caird, included a treatment of linguistic analysis, indicating the more 'academic' interests of the new team, such as Holloway. This continued to be the style of the Journal for the subsequent issues.
Cleobury contributed a further paper in 1966, on 'Concepts of Mind, Matter and God", which took in the descriptive function of language, analogy and logical positivism. The Society's publication had thereby shown signs of being, at least, in touch with contemporary philosophy, even if critically. It was attempting to show that there was nothing wrong with arguing a theistic position nor with being critical of modern trends and taking a traditionalist stance, offering such eminent people as A.C. Ewing and E. L. Mascall as examples.
With the succession of A. J. Sinclair Burton to the editorship, however, The Philosopher became an almost wholly religious, even devotional, magazine. Virtually without exception all the articles for the next seven years seemed to take for granted not merely a theistic but an overtly and dogmatically Christian line. Of course, an editor is to a large extent limited by the works submitted for publication, especially when there are not all that many received from which to choose; but Burton's own standpoint is clear. He published his own series of four articles on the general theme of reconciliation, which read like addresses to the devout at a Christian retreat. When Dr Frank Kinder contributed three teaching papers based on great philosophers of the past: a massive and brave attempt to summarise the thought of Hegel, a strongly-Christian exposition of the doctrine of immortality, and a study of Descartes, the latter was clearly not thought 'Christian enough' by the Editor, who added his own sermonising postscript.
Even what otherwise appeared to be an exception to this Scripture-centred editorial policy, a paper entitled: 'Can we govern a runaway world?' by Barbara Stafford in Spring 1968, dealing with social and family structures, was, in fact, much indebted to Teilhard de Chardin and ended by commending Christian attitudes and teachings.
It is not altogether surprsiing that twice, in the issues of Spring 1969 and Spring 1971, Sinclair Burton admitted that he had received criticisms that The Philosopher had become 'too theological... like a parish magazine; too chatty and whimsical for a learned Society and occasionally so preoccupied with theology that philosophy gave way to sermonizing.' ("Occasionally" was a major understatement.) Burton stoutly defended his policy by insisting that philosophy cannot do without theology, for which he revives the ancient title 'Queen of the sciences'. It is clear that for him philosophy meant the search for a First Cause, a ground of being.
If it is one thing, and entirely legitimate, to include religious assertions and theological claims as subjects for philosophical investigation and even as factors to be taken into account. It is, however, quite another to take biblical revelation and the Christian Church's doctrines as axiomatic and as the prior determinants of all subsequent thinking. Between 1965 and 1972 the overwhelming keynote of The Philosopher was one simply of exposition of, and commentary upon, such revelation and doctrines.
Insofar as philosophy featured in the pages of the Journal at all at this time, its main topic was to discuss what the Society understood by it, a discussion which can be well epitomised in a brief article by Victor Rienaecker in the Autumn 1968 issue under the title 'The Function of Philosophy'. He says "The great problem for Humanity, and therefore for Philosophy, is to try to answer the Psalmist's question - What is Man?... Whence came he? Whither is he heading? All of which amounts to asking - What is the meaning and the purpose of human life upon this earth?" Rienaecker goes on later to quote J. A. Hadfield, a past President, from 1958:
There is no greater need at the present time than that people should have a Philosophy of Life. And we say "people" specifically, for we regard philosophy not merely as a subject for scholars but as a practical need for everyday life, a guide to living.
This is a highly interesting interpretation of the Society's declared object of "spreading the knowledge of practical philosophy among the general public". It seems clear, if The Philosopher under Sinclair Burton's editorship is anything to go by, that the Society felt itself charged with the sacred duty of helping individuals to work out for themselves, or even offering them, a set of moral convictions based on knowing what life is for. In this light philosophy becomes the metaphysical search for an Absolute, for a unifying reality from which moral principles are believed to derive; and for most in the Society traditional Christianity was where this was found.
Meanwhile the Secretary of the London Area Group (with Rupert Judge as its Chairman) was George Colbran, and under his editorship the Group's Newsletter, The Quest, became quite a major publication of the Society, although of course with a circulation confined to London members. An unpretentious typed and duplicated bi-monthly folded foolscap sheet of four pages, it grew to eight and even twelve pages, until it vied in quality with The Philosopher, equally if not more learned - as were, evidently, the London Group discussions. Each issue contained a detailed report of the Group's meetings, including dinners, revealing an ambitious and serious programme. Papers were printed on such subjects as Humanism, Psychic Research, Mysticism, the Will, Ontology, Epicurus, Hume's Empiricism, the Pragmatism of William James, Heraclitus and Henri Bergson. Dr Jennings White contributed a series on logical fallacies. Colbran himself, well-versed in linguistics, literature and philosophy, wrote for The Quest some little good-humoured gems of essays which, while bearing such whimsical titles as "Muchness and Suchness" and "The Being of Having", displayed an acuteness and a profundity of philosophical thought.
Following Sinclair Burton's death in 1972 George Colbran succeeded to editorship of The Philosopher, but had a regrettably short tenure of office, producing only two issues of The Philosopher before pressure of other work led him to hand over to Holloway. Already, however, under his direction a marked change of tone was noticeable. Dr Jennings White had already begun his monumental series of seven papers on the early Greek thinkers. Over the next ten years contributors like Keith Dowling and Dr Geoffrey Brown (future Editors), E. P. Davies and the new President John Wilson contributed articles on such subjects as 'On the meaning of "necessary", 'Utilitarianism and consumer morality', "Knowledge and belief", and "The powers and problems of philosophy". John Sherry was published on Plato and the Sophists, Leibniz, and Marx - a critique of idealism. Dr B. E. Beater had a series of three essays on the brain-mind problem, and Dr Frank Callister had two on Gilbert Ryle: the category mistake, and knowing how and knowing that.
So the foundation was laid for the quite different atmosphere which has permeated The Philosopher since the late 1980s. Colbran's and Holloway's editorship may perhaps be seen in retrospect as a transitional period. Current and future membership of the Philosophical Society will judge, in the light of the Society's objects, whether it can be called progress.
The course of progress, however, never did run smoothly. As has already been noted, the Society had been in earlier years no stranger to controversy and criticism, and now a threat to the development of its reputation came from an unexpected direction: the Geneva Theological College, with which the Philosophical Society became closely identified in the nineteen-seventies. This identification was in no sense official but merely the result of several officers of the Society becoming not only recipients of Geneva degrees but also active officials of the College in the United Kingdom. It seems to have been the creation of the Rev. R. Banks Blocher, a large and genial American anglophile who was an enthusiastic member and Fellow of the Philosophical Society, in fact its U.S.A. Correspondent. The anonymous Preface to the Church of England's Crockford's Clerical Directory for 1971-72 launched a veiled attack in the light of "inquiries that we have received in connection with the recent granting of doctorates to certain clergymen by a body called the Geneva Theological College. This institution is not the chief theological centre of Calvin's city, but is located in the State of Indiana, U.S.A., and claims to be empowered to grant degrees in the United States and in other countries."
The article went on to list twelve degrees that according to its prospectus the college awards - at Bachelor, Master, Doctor and Higher Doctorate levels - at a cost of £65, it says, for students in England after courses ostensibly lasting between one and three years. It added:
There seems to be some personal connection between the Geneva Theological College and the Philosophical Society of England. Of the four members of its (i.e Geneva's) Governing Body in the United Kingdom one is an Associate and the other three Fellows of the Philosophical Society of England. The three Fellows are also respectively Chairman of Council, General Secretary and Registrar and Treasurer of the Philosophical Society... The Moderating Examiner of the Philosophical Society is also one of the two Senior Tutors in the United Kingdom of the Geneva Theological College.
Embarrassing in the light of earlier events, though this was, the facts were indisputable. The Society's Chairman, John Griffiths, its General Secretary Edgar Ford, its Registrar and Treasurer Rupert Judge, and the Editor of The Philosopher until 1972, A. J. Sinclair Burton, were all G.T.C. Doctors and administrators of the college in the U.K. All maintained that they had had to sit examinations and submit theses. But the attack was not over. Margaret Duggan, columnist of the Church Times, alleged (in a letter of June 6th 1974) that "The Geneva Theological College... award degrees, mostly doctorates, on payment of £80." This potentially libellous statement was challenged by Holloway who wrote immediately with a request "If you have any clear evidence that their degrees can be bought I should be extremely glad to know about it ". No reply was forthcoming.
It was partly with this situation in mind, however, that Alan Holloway wrote an editorial in Autumn 1974, which announced yet new academic regulations for the Society's Associateship and Fellowship. Courses were to be 'lengthened and strengthened so that the level of scholarship and achievement ultimately reached will be worthy of the best. The Society is determined to leave no doubt that its diplomas, once attained, are and will continue to be worth possessing.'
Meantimes, during the late nineteen-seventies and into the eighties the musical chairs of rotation of posts among the established officers continued. Alan Holloway became Chairman to add to his Editorship, and Everett Davies became vice-Chairman as well as Director of Studies, succeeding in turn to the Chairmanship in 1981.
In 1977, when Dr Cleobury relinquished his Presidency at the age of 85, John Wilson of the University of Oxford Department of Education was approached and accepted the office. He already enjoyed a reputation in education and philosophy which made him an ideal choice to head the Society, having published a number of small and quite popularly written but nonetheless acute original books such as Philosophy and Religion and Thinking with Concepts. He was keen from the first to be not a mere figurehead but an active participant in the Society's life, attending and addressing some of its meetings. In the middle 1980s he also initiated an ambitious research project, the Oxford Philosophy Trust, to investigate and promote the teaching of philosophy in schools. It did not, however, get off the ground for lack of adequate outside funding, although as recently as 1994 efforts were being made to re-launch it with a somewhat wider remit even closer to the Philosophical Society's objects. It yet deserves to succeed.
One of the meetings at which John Wilson presented a paper was held by the Gloucester Area (later Severn and Wye) Group, one of several Branches in various areas of the country, the establishment of which had long been a principal object of the Society. A North-Western Branch had flourished for many years, based in Manchester and led by Derek Johnston. In The Philosopher of Autumn 1965 was a report from the Scottish Branch, with fifty-six members who, being widely scattered, had difficulty in getting to Glasgow.
But, not unnaturally, the Society's main Branch was the London Group at this time, with its own newsletter and an impressive programme of meetings. Its host for a long time was the Rev. Edgar J. Ford, a tutor in business and secretarial studies and later a Methodist Minister, who had been the Society's Librarian and faithful General Secretary from 1967 all the way to his retirement in 1979. His academic progress was remarkable, seeing him proceeding part-time, according to The Philosopher, from B.A. via M.A. to Ph.D. in barely two years. He was succeeded briefly by Eric Freeman, who was also Examinations Secretary, and then by Rodney Fleckner, a former student of Holloway, who had already occupied a new post of Development Officer. This last post had been optimistically created to explore ways of increasing membership and local group activity, but the membership proved reluctant to be 'developed'.
At the end of the 1970s the list of Vice-Presidents included evidently eminent figures such as the Very Rev. Edward Carpenter, Leslie Paul, Lord Wells-Pestell and Lord Wolfenden. The Society mourned, however, in 1977 the loss of one of its most distinguished and valued Vice-Presidents, Dr Harold Dinely Jennings White. He was a founder member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy and a prolific contributor to The Philosopher, notably with his last series of papers on the pre-Socratic philosophers. After reading mental and moral sciences for his Cambridge MA he had gained a Ph.D. at London in psychology and lectured at Birkbeck College, later becoming a psychotherapist, thereby reflecting a curious but positive affinity between the Society and the world of psychology. A special issue of The Philosopher in the summer of 1978 was devoted entirely to his writings.
With the coming of the 1980s, the game of musical chairs became more frantic at the top of the Society, and more radical. Largely through the influence of Everett Davies, a number of lecturers from University Departments of Philosophy came into prominence: Keith Dowling as Director of Studies, and a triumvirate of Dr Geoffrey Brown, Martin Hughes and, later, Michael Bavidge editing the Journal. This certainly brought a fresh academic rigour, but at the risk of becoming too "professional" for the ordinary non-specialist member, at least until these scholars recognised, as they usually did, the special nature of the Society, and adjusted to it.
So the third twenty-five years ended much as they had begun: in an atmosphere of flux with new faces and new names. The end result had not been an immediate increase in membership or influence, but for many it was reassuring that now at least the Society was attracting to its ranks, and being led by, people with accepted credentials in University Departments of Philosophy. It could, it was hoped, begin once again to hold up its head, if modestly, to pursue its distinctive objectives with respectability. Even Crockford's Clerical Directory, which for many years had refused to include F.Ph.S. among letters after names in its list of Anglican clergy, began once again to accept it.