Charlie Dunbar Broad (30 December 1887 – 11 March 1971), usually cited as C. D. Broad, was an
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ide ...
epistemologist
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
,
historian of philosophy
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
,
philosopher of science
A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
,
moral philosopher
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
, and writer on the
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
aspects of
psychical research
Parapsychology is the study of alleged psychic phenomena (extrasensory perception, telepathy, precognition, clairvoyance, psychokinesis (also called telekinesis), and psychometry) and other paranormal claims, for example, those related to near- ...
. He was known for his thorough and dispassionate examinations of
argument
An argument is a statement or group of statements called premises intended to determine the degree of truth or acceptability of another statement called conclusion. Arguments can be studied from three main perspectives: the logical, the dialectic ...
s in such works as ''Scientific Thought'' (1923), ''The Mind and Its Place in Nature'' (1925), and ''Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy'' (2 vols., 1933–1938).
Broad's essay on "Determinism, Indeterminism, and Libertarianism" in ''Ethics and the History of Philosophy'' (1952) introduced the philosophical terms ''occurrent causation'' and ''non-occurrent causation'', which became the basis for the contemporary distinction between "agent-causal" and "event-causal" in debates on
libertarian
Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...
free will
Free will is the capacity of agents to choose between different possible courses of action unimpeded.
Free will is closely linked to the concepts of moral responsibility, praise, culpability, sin, and other judgements which apply only to actio ...
.
Biography
Broad was born in
Harlesden
Harlesden is a district in the London Borough of Brent, North West London.
Located north of the Grand Union Canal and Wormwood Scrubs, the Harrow Road flows through the centre of the area which goes eastwards to Central London and west towards ...
, in
Middlesex
Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...
, England.
[Harlesden was part of Middlesex until 1965; today it is part of the ]London Borough of Brent
The London Borough of Brent () is a London boroughs, London borough in north-west London. It borders the boroughs of London Borough of Harrow, Harrow to the north-west, London Borough of Barnet, Barnet to the north-east, London Borough of Camden ...
in Greater London.
He was educated at
Dulwich College
Dulwich College is a 2–19 independent, day and boarding school for boys in Dulwich, London, England. As a public school, it began as the College of God's Gift, founded in 1619 by Elizabethan actor Edward Alleyn, with the original purpose of ...
from 1900 until 1906. He gained a scholarship in 1906 to study at
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...
, graduating in 1910 with
First-Class Honours
The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied (sometimes with significant variati ...
, with distinction. He became a
Fellow
A fellow is a concept whose exact meaning depends on context.
In learned or professional societies, it refers to a privileged member who is specially elected in recognition of their work and achievements.
Within the context of higher education ...
of Trinity College the following year.
Career
As his fellowship at Trinity College was a non-residential position, he was also able to accept a position as an assistant lecturer that he had applied for at
St Andrews University
(Aien aristeuein)
, motto_lang = grc
, mottoeng = Ever to ExcelorEver to be the Best
, established =
, type = Public research university
Ancient university
, endowment ...
, where he remained until 1920. That year, he was appointed professor at
Bristol University
, mottoeng = earningpromotes one's innate power (from Horace, ''Ode 4.4'')
, established = 1595 – Merchant Venturers School1876 – University College, Bristol1909 – received royal charter
, type ...
, working there until 1923, when he returned to Trinity as a lecturer. From 1926 until 1931, he was a lecturer in '
moral science
Human science (or human sciences in the plural), also known as humanistic social science and moral science (or moral sciences), studies the philosophical, biological, social, and cultural aspects of human life. Human science aims to expand our ...
' at
Cambridge University's Faculty of Philosophy.
Later at Cambridge, he was appointed in 1931 as 'Sidgwick Lecturer', a role he would keep until 1933, when he was appointed
Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University, a position he held for twenty years (until 1953).
In 1927 he gave the British Academy's
Master-Mind Lecture, entitled ''Sir Isaac Newton''.
In addition, Broad was President of the
Aristotelian Society
The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London.
History
Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...
from 1927 to 1928, and again from 1954 to 1955. He was also President of the
Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
in 1935 and 1958.
[
]
Personal life
Broad was openly homosexual at a time when homosexual acts were illegal. In March 1958, Broad along with fellow philosophers A.J. Ayer
Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer (; 29 October 1910 – 27 June 1989), usually cited as A. J. Ayer, was an English philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books ''Language, Truth, and Logic'' (1936) an ...
and Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British mathematician, philosopher, logician, and public intellectual. He had a considerable influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, linguistics, ...
, writer J.B. Priestley
John Boynton Priestley (; 13 September 1894 – 14 August 1984) was an English novelist, playwright, screenwriter, broadcaster and social commentator.
His Yorkshire background is reflected in much of his fiction, notably in ''The Good Compa ...
and 27 others sent a letter to ''The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' which urged the acceptance of the ''Wolfenden Report
The Report of the Departmental Committee on Homosexual Offences and Prostitution (better known as the Wolfenden report, after Sir John Wolfenden, the chairman of the committee) was published in the United Kingdom on 4 September 1957 after a suc ...
's'' recommendation that homosexual acts should "no longer be a criminal offence."
Theory
Psychical research
Broad argued that if research could demonstrate that psychic events occur, this would challenge philosophical theories of " basic limiting principles" in at least five ways:
# Backward causation (i.e., the future affecting the past) is rejected by many philosophers, but would be shown to occur if, for example, people could predict the future.
# One common argument against dualism (i.e., the belief that, while bodies are physical entities, minds are a different, non-physical sort of entity) is that physical and non-physical things cannot interact. However, this would be shown to be possible if people can move physical objects by thought (telekinesis
Psychokinesis (from grc, ψυχή, , soul and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), or telekinesis (from grc, τηλε, , far off and grc, κίνησις, , movement, label=ㅤ), is a hypothetical psychic ability allowing a person ...
).
# Similarly, philosophers tend to be skeptical
Skepticism, also spelled scepticism, is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the pe ...
about claims that non-physical 'stuff' could interact with anything. This would also be challenged if mind
The mind is the set of faculties responsible for all mental phenomena. Often the term is also identified with the phenomena themselves. These faculties include thought, imagination, memory, will, and sensation. They are responsible for various m ...
s are shown to be able to communicate with each other, as would be the case if mind-reading is possible.
# Philosophers generally accept that we can only learn about the world through reason
Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is closely associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, science, ...
and perception
Perception () is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand the presented information or environment. All perception involves signals that go through the nervous system ...
. This belief would be challenged if people were able to psychically perceive events in other places.
# Physicalist
In philosophy, physicalism is the metaphysical thesis that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenes on the physical. Physicalism is a form of ontological monism—a "one substance ...
philosophers believe that there cannot be persons without bodies. If ghosts were shown to exist, this view would be challenged.
Free will
In his essay "Determinism, Indeterminism, and Libertarianism", Broad argued for non-occurrent causation as "literally determined by the agent or self." The agent could be considered as a substance or continuant, and not by a total cause which contains as factors events in and dispositions of the agent. Thus, our efforts would be completely determined, but their causes would not be prior events. New series of events would then originate, which he called "continuants", which are essentially ''causa sui
''Causa sui'' (; ) is a Latin term that denotes something that is generated within itself. Used in relation to the purpose that objects can assign to themselves, the concept was central to the works of Baruch Spinoza, Sigmund Freud, Jean-Paul Sa ...
''.
Peter van Inwagen
Peter van Inwagen (; born September 21, 1942) is an American analytic philosopher and the John Cardinal O'Hara Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or N ...
says that Broad formulated an excellent version of what van Inwagen has called the "Consequence Argument" in defence of incompatibilism
Incompatibilism is the view that a deterministic universe is completely at odds with the notion that persons have free will, the latter being defined as the capacity of conscious agents to choose a future course of action among several available ...
.
Works
* 1914
''Perception, physics and reality. An Enquiry into the Information that Physical Science can Supply about the Real.''
London: Cambridge University Press. .
* 1923. '' Scientific thought.'' New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co. ().
* 1925
''The Mind and Its Place in Nature.''
London: Kegan.
* 1926
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* 1930
New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
* 1931
London: Humphrey Milford.
* 1933
Vol. 1. Cambridge University Press.
* 1934
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* 1938
Vol. 2. Cambridge University Press.
* 1952/2000. '' Ethics and the History of Philosophy''. Routledge. .
* 1953/2000. '' Religion, Philosophy and Psychic Research''. Routledge. .
* 1955.
Human Personality and the Possibility of Its Survival.
' University of California Press.
* 1958.
Personal Identity and Survival
'' London: Society for Psychical Research
The Society for Psychical Research (SPR) is a nonprofit organisation in the United Kingdom. Its stated purpose is to understand events and abilities commonly described as psychic or paranormal. It describes itself as the "first society to condu ...
.
* 1962. '' Lectures on Psychical Research. Incorporating the Perrott Lectures given in Cambridge University in 1959 and 1960.'' New York: Humanities Press.
** contain
Saltmarsh's Investigation of Mrs Warren Elliott's Mediumship
" ''Lectures on Psychical Research. Incorporating the Perrott Lectures given in Cambridge University in 1959 and 1960.'' New York: Humanities Press.
* 1968. '' Induction, Probability, and Causation. Selected Papers of C. D. Broad'', Dordrecht: Reidel.
* 1971. '' Broad's Critical Essays in Moral Philosophy'', New York: Humanities Press.
* 1975. '' Leibniz: An Introduction'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* 1976.
Berkeley's Argument
'' Haskell House Pub Ltd.
* 1978. ''Kant: An Introduction''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* 1985. ''Ethics''. Dordrecht: Nijhoff.
Notes
References
Sources
* Borchert, Donald M., ed. 2006. ''Encyclopedia of Philosophy'', Volume 1 (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Macmillan Reference.
Further reading
* Britton, Karl. 1978.
Charlie Dunbar Broad, 1887–1971
" ''Proceedings of the British Academy
The ''Proceedings of the British Academy'' is a series of academic volumes on subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The first volume was published in 1905. Up to 1991, the volumes (appearing annually from 1927) mostly consisted of the te ...
'' 64:289–310.
* Schilpp, Paul. 1959. '' The Philosophy of C. D. Broad''. Tudor: New York.
External links
Charlie Dunbar Broad
entry at The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') combines an online encyclopedia of philosophy with peer-reviewed publication of original papers in philosophy, freely accessible to Internet users. It is maintained by Stanford University. Eac ...
C. D. Broad: a bibliography
Provides full pdf's of most of Broad's writings.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Broad, C. D.
1887 births
1971 deaths
20th-century English male writers
20th-century English philosophers
20th-century essayists
Academics of the University of St Andrews
Action theorists
Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
Analytic philosophers
Aristotelian philosophers
British ethicists
British gay writers
British historians of philosophy
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British consciousness researchers and theorists
English essayists
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English historians of philosophy
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Epistemologists
Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge
George Berkeley scholars
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Historians of science
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Libertarian theorists
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British parapsychologists
People educated at Dulwich College
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Philosophers of ethics and morality
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Presidents of the Aristotelian Society
Probability theorists
Writers about activism and social change
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Knightbridge Professors of Philosophy