Antony Flew

Professor Antony Garrard Newton Flew (born February 11 1923) is a British philosopher. For several decades, he was recognized as a prominent atheist. Yet in December 2004, he began expressing deist opinions.^[1]

Biography

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 ordinary language philosophy. He was among many Oxford philosophers fiercely criticised in Ernest Gellner's book Words and Things, which he called a "juvenile work". Another early highlight in his career was a 1954 debate with Michael Dummett over backward causation.

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.

In his 1975 book Thinking about Thinking, he developed the 'No true Scotsman' fallacy.

Political commitments

Flew has a long history of involvement in conservative politics. He was a member of the study group behind a report published in 1977 by the intelligence connected Institute for the Study of Conflict alleging a Marxist penetration into British academia. Considering the ideological orientation of the study group, The Observer commented that: ‘The study group seems to believe with Professor Hayek and his disciple, Sir Keith Joseph, that true liberty is possible only in a capitalist, free market civilisation.’

The Times reported the report’s findings that: ‘radical minorities...often disagreed with each other, but they had a common distaste, bordering at times upon sheer hatred for the liberal, tolerant society in which they moved.’ The Times published extracts of the report, but also criticised it as having an ‘alarmist tone which goes beyond his evidence.’

In the late 1980s Flew became an active vice-president of the Western Goals Institute, a pressure group opposed to immigration and free trade, and supportive of apartheid. Flew was also a committee member of Majority Rights, alongside Ray Honeyford and Tim Janman, MP.

He sits on the management committee of The Freedom Association, and has contributed to Right Now! magazine, the Salisbury Review, and publications of the Libertarian Alliance, the Social Affairs Unit, the Society for Individual Freedom and the Institute of Economic Affairs.

Professor Flew is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist Association.

Notes

1. ^Following the Habermas interview proclaiming Flew a theist, when asked if he still stands by his landmark argument for atheism, Flew replied: "Oh yes. Yes I think so. That's how you should deal with any question which is seriously controversial." No longer atheist, Flew stands by "Presumption of Atheism" By DUNCAN CRARY Humanist Network News