William George de Burgh (; ; 24 October 1866 – 27 August 1943) was an English philosopher who was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading.

Career

Born on 24 October 1866 in

Wandsworth Wandsworth Town () is a district of south London, within the London Borough of Wandsworth southwest of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan The London Plan is the statutory spatial development strategy for the Gre ...

, Cited in . de Burgh was educated at

Winchester Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...

and

Merton College, Oxford Merton College (in full: The House or College of Scholars of Merton in the University of Oxford) is one of the Colleges of Oxford University, constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the ...

. He was a founding member of the University of Reading, where he became Professor of Philosophy in 1907. His works include ''Towards a Religious Philosophy'' (1937), ''From Morality to Religion'' (1938), and ''The Legacy of the Ancient World'' (1924). A committed

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

, he endeavoured to justify the revealed truth of the gospel in terms of

rationalism In philosophy, rationalism is the epistemological view that "regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge" or "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification".Lacey, A.R. (1996), ''A Dictionary of Philosophy' ...

and thereby defend it against both the contemporary

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

theological trend for anti-rationalism and the dominant philosophy of

logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...

. He died 27 August 1943 in

Toller Porcorum Toller Porcorum () is a village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the River Toller, Toller valley northwest of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the 2011 census the civil parish—which also includes t ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

References

Bibliography

* * * * 1866 births 1943 deaths 20th-century British philosophers Academics of the University of Reading Alumni of Merton College, Oxford Anglican philosophers Fellows of the British Academy People from the London Borough of Wandsworth Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Academics from London {{England-philosopher-stub