Donald James Allan

Donald James Allan (born December 22, 1907 , † June 19, 1978 ) was a British classical philologist ( Graecist ) and historian of philosophy .

Life

After attending Christ's Hospital, an independent boarding school near Horsham , West Sussex , Allan studied at Christ Church , Oxford . He earned his BA in 1930 and an MA in 1933. From 1931 to 1947 he was a Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Balliol College . During World War II, Allan was seconded to the Foreign Office secret service in Bletchley Park. In 1948 he was appointed Reader in Ancient Philosophy at Edinburgh University . From 1957 to 1971 Allan held the Chair of Greek Philology at the University of Glasgow. From 1968 to 1970 he was also Dean of the Faculty of Arts there.

Allan worked mainly on Aristotle and Plato . He began with a text-critical edition of the book Über den Himmel , Aristotle's main work on the structure of the cosmos. An annotated edition of the first book of the state of Plato followed. He had resounding success with his Aristotle book, translated into German, French and Brazilian , and two short essays on Aristotle's conception of the origin of moral principles and practical syllogism . In 1955 Allan founded the renowned philosophy-historical journal Phronesis with the Greekist Joseph Bright Skemp ( University of Durham ) .

Fonts (selection)

• Aristotelis De Caelo libri IV. Recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit DJ Allan. Clarendon Press, Oxford 1936 (Oxford Classical Texts), reprinted Oxford 1955.
• Plato, The Republic Book 1. London 1940; Reprinted in London 1953.
• Mediaeval Versions of Aristotle, De Caelo, and of the Commentary of Simplicius , in: Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies 2, 1950, 82–120.
• The Philosophy of Aristotle. Oxford UP, London 1952, reprinted 1970.
  • German translation: The philosophy of Aristotle. Translated and edited by Paul Wilpert . Felix Meiner, Hamburg 1955.
  • French translation: Aristote le Philosophe. Trad. de Ch. Lefèvre. Louvain-Paris 1962.
  • Brazilian translation: A Filosofia de Aristóteles. Editorial Presença, 1970.
• Aristotle's Account of the Origin of Moral Principles , in: Actes du Xle Congrès International de Philosophie , vol. XII, Amsterdam 1953, 120-127; Reprinted in: Jonathan Barnes , Malcolm Schofield , Richard Sorabji (Eds.), Articles on Aristotle. Vol. 2: Ethics and Politics. New York 1977, 72-78.
  • German translation: Aristotle's conception of the origin of moral principles , in: F.-P. Hager (Ed.), Ethics and Politics of Aristotle. Darmstadt 1972, 275-286.
• The Practical Syllogism , in: Recueil d'études de philosophie ancienne et médiévale offert à Monseigneur A. Mansion. Louvain 1955, 325-340.
• Quasi-Mathematical Method in the Eudemian Ethics , in: Suzanne Mansion (Ed.), Aristote et lesproblemèmes de méthode. Communications présentées au Symposium Aristotelicum tenu à Louvain du 24 août au 1st September 1960 . Louvain 1961, 303-318.
• Aristotle's Criticism of Platonic Doctrine concerning Goodness and the Good , in: Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society NS 64, 1963/1964, 273-286.
• L'Individu et l'État dans l'Ethique et la Politique. In: La "Politique" d '' Aristote. Sept exposés and discussions. ( Entretiens sur l'Antiquité Classique , part XI). Hardt Foundation, Vandoeuvres-Genève, 53–95.
• The Fine and the Good in the Eudemian Ethics , in: Paul Moraux , Dieter Harlfinger (Ed.), Investigations on Eudemian Ethics. De Gruyter, Berlin 1971, 63-71.
• Critical and Explanatory Notes on Some Passages Assigned to Aristotle's "Protrepticus". In: Phronesis 21, 1976, 219-240.

Web links

• The University of Glasgow Story: Donald Allan
• Bletchley Park, Roll of Honor: Mr. Donald James Allan