Dorothy Emmet

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Dorothy Mary Emmet (born September 29, 1904 in Kensington , London , † September 20, 2000 in Cambridge ) was a British philosopher who founded and headed the Department of Philosophy at the University of Manchester .

Life

Emmet was the eldest daughter of pastor Cyril William Emmet and his wife Gertrude Julia, nee Weir. She had a younger sister and a younger brother. Her father became a lecturer at Oxford University College in 1920 . Emmet attended the schools of St. Mary's Hall in Brighton (1918-1923) and Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford (1923-1926), where she heard, among others, William David Ross and Robin George Collingwood . After graduating, she worked as a tutor until 1928 when she was offered a position at Radcliffe College , Harvard . There she attended a seminar with Alfred North Whitehead , whose philosophy impressed her. On her return in 1930 she taught at Somerville College , Oxford and published her first book in 1932 on "Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism". From 1932 she was a lecturer at Armstrong College in Newcastle-upon-Tyne , later the University of Newcastle . In 1938 she moved to Manchester as a lecturer in the philosophy of religion . There she became Professor of Philosophy in 1945 and was appointed Sir Samuel Hall Professor of Philosophy in 1946. In 1953 and 1954 she was President of the Aristotelian Society and from 1962 to 1964 she was her "Dean of Arts" University active. In The Manchester Guardian , she published book reviews regularly. With her retirement in 1966, Emmet moved to Cambridge and concentrated on her research. There she was a member of the "Moral Sciences Club", lecturer emeritus at Lucy Cavendish College and co-editor of the journal "Theoria to Theory". She also gave several lectures on philosophy in West Africa. A number of other book publications followed until a few years before her death.

Teaching

Emmet took a critical look at positivism and represented a socially committed position in the field of political philosophy that she had developed during her activity as a tutor for unemployed workers in the 1920s. Here she worked closely with other departments of the university such as political science, economics and anthropology. Colleagues here were Max Gluckman , Michael Polanyi and Arthur Norman Prior . With Margaret Masterman (1910–1986) and her husband Richard Bevan Braithwaite , she was a founding member of the "Epiphany Philosophers", whose aim was to show that Christianity and philosophy are not only compatible with one another, but even need one another.

Works

  • Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism (1932) ( online at Internet Archive)
  • The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking (1945)
  • Annual philosophical lecture to the British Academy (1949)
  • The Stanton lectures in Cambridge (1950–53)
  • Function, Purpose and Powers (1958)
  • Rules, Roles and Relations (1966)
  • In The Moral Prism (1979)
  • The Effectiveness of Causes (1986)
  • The Passage of Nature (1992)
  • The Role of the Unrealisable (1994)
  • Philosophers and Friends: Reminiscences of 70 Years in Philosophy (1996)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Emmet, Dorothy
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Emmet, Dorothy Mary (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH September 29, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Kensington , London
DATE OF DEATH September 20, 2000
Place of death Cambridge