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Cambridge Philosophers Viii: C. D. Broad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Theo Redpath
Theo Redpath
Affiliation:
Trinity College, Cambridge
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Extract

A sharp contrast had recently been drawn by one of our Cambridge Professors between Bertrand Russell and Broad1 in respect of their characters and their intellectual and moral careers. We have been told that Russell was several times in prison, married and divorced several times, had several mistresses, was frequently short of money, and very unstable in changing his philosophical views. As far as I know Broad was never in prison for anything. Again, so far from marrying several times, he tells us with some satisfaction in his Autobiography that there was ‘never any risk’ of his ‘catching his foot in the man-trap of matrimony.’ This was one of the reasons why, in contrast with Russell, he was never short of money. Other reasons were that his tastes were simple, and that like his West Country philosophical forerunner, John Locke, and evidently like his Director of Studies, McTaggart, he paid great attention to investment. He was determined to save and invest enough to make himself ‘as soon as possible independent of the vicissitudes of employment’.

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Articles
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Philosophy , Volume 72 , Issue 282 , October 1997, pp. 571 - 594
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1997

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References

1 Charles Dunbar, Broad (1887-1971) b. 30 Dec 1887 at Harlesden. Only son of Charles Stephen Broad and Emily Gomme. 1900 Enters Dulwich College; 1906 Entrance Scholar in Natural Sciences, Trinity College, Cambridge; 1908 Natural Sciences Tripos, Part I, Class I; 1910 Moral Sciences Tripos, Part II, Class I with Special Distinction; 1911 Assisting Professor G. F. Stout at St Andrews; Elected to Prize Fellowship at Trinity College Cambridge; 1914 Perception, Physics and Reality; 1914 Outbreak of World War I; 1915-1918 Works under Professor Irvine at St Andrews for Ministry of Munitions; Father dies; 1918-20 Lecturer at University College, Dundee (University of St Andrews); 1920 Professor of Philosophy, University of Bristol; Joins Society for Psychical Research; 1922 Tarner Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge; 1923 Scientific Thought; Succeeds McTaggart as Lecturer in Moral Science at Trinity College, Cambridge; Elected to Staff Fellowship; 1924 McTaggart dies, Broad his sole Literary Executor; 1925 The Mind and Its Place in Nature; 1927 Edits McTaggart's The Nature of Existence, Vol. II; 1930 Five Types of Ethical Theory; 1933 Appointed Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy, University of Cambridge; Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, Vol. I; 1934 Inaugural Lecture: Determinism, Indeterminism and Libertarianism; 1938 Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy, Vol. II, Parts I and II; 1939 Outbreak of World War II. Death of Broad's Mother. Succeeds David Hinks as Junior Bursar, Trinity College; 1946 First of many yearly visits to Sweden; 1952 Ethics and The History of Philosophy; 1953 Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research; retires from Knightbridge Professorship. 1953_4 Visits Universities of Michigan and of California at Los Angeles. 1959 Schilpp Volume The Philosophy of C. D. Broad. 1959-60 Gives Perrott Lectures on Psychical Research. 1968 Induction, Probability, and Causation, ed. J. Hintikka. 1971 (11 March) Broad dies at age of 83. 1971 Broad's Critical Essays in Moral Philosophy, ed. by D. R. Cheney. 1975 Lectures on Leibniz, ed. C. Lewy. 1978 Lectures on Kant, ed. by C. Lewy. 1985 Lectures on Ethics, ed by C. Lewy.Google Scholar

2 Mind (n.s.) Vol. XXVII (1918), pp. 484-492, at p. 491.Google Scholar

3 The self-righteous magistrate in The Pickwick Papers.Google Scholar

4 The Independent Review, v.I, Dec. 1903, pp, 415-424.Google Scholar

5 Five Types of Ethical Theory, London, 1939, pp. 49, 51Google Scholar

6 The Principles of Mathematics (Cambridge University Press, 1903).Google Scholar

7 The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, (ed. by Schilpp, P. A.) (New York, 1944, 1951), pp. 1–20.Google Scholar

8 Ibid., pp. 7-8.

9 Determinism, Indeterminism, and Libertarianism (Cambridge University Press, 1934), pp. 48.Google Scholar (Reprinted in Ethics and the History of Philosophy, London, 1952.)Google Scholar

10 London, 1952, pp. 487-551.Google Scholar

11 See Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, passim,Google Scholar and the section on Psychical Research in Broad, Religion, Philosophy, and Psychical Research, London, 1953.Google ScholarSee also inter alia, his lecture Human Personality and the Possibility of its Survival. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1955).Google Scholar

12 Reprinted in Religion, Philosophy and Psychical Research (London, 1953), pp. 175–201.Google Scholar

13 In Broad's Autobiography in the Schilpp volume on Broad, at p. 44.

14 For the terms ‘occurrent’ and ‘continuant’ invented by Johnson, W. E., see his Logic (Cambridge, 1921-1924), especially Vol. 1, pp. 199–201 and Vol. III, p. xxi and Chapters VI and VII passim.Google Scholar

15 Taylor, A. E., ‘The Moral Argument for Immortality’, The Holborn Review, 1920, pp. 213–234.Google Scholar

16 The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. 40, 01 1939, pp. 16–30; Apr.1939, pp. 156_67Google Scholar (reprinted in Broad, Religion, Philosophy, and Psychical Research (London, 1953), pp. 175–201.Google Scholar

17 The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (ed. Schilpp, P. A.), (New York, 1944, 1951), p. 10.Google Scholar

18 Leibniz: An Introduction (ed. Lewy, C.), (Cambridge, 1975).Google Scholar

19 Kant: An Introduction (ed. Lewy, C.), (Cambridge, 1978).Google Scholar

20 Ethics (ed. Lewy, C.), (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster, 1975).Google Scholar

21 The International Journal of Ethics, vol. 23, 07 1913, pp. 396–418.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

22 Broad Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy (Cambridge, 1933-1938, Vol. 2, Part III, p. 788.Google Scholar

23 The only possible exception would be in Ethics. In that field Broad does offer something in the nature of a system in his Lectures on Ethics, (ed. Casimir Lewy).Google Scholar

24 Op. cit. p. 285.Google Scholar

25 See Hare, R. M., ‘Broad's Approach to Moral Philosophy’, in the Schilpp volume on Broad, pp. 563-577.Google Scholar

26 Lectures on Ethics (ed. Lewy, C.) (Dordrecht, 1985), pp. 8–123.Google Scholar

27 The Philosophy of C. D. Broad, ed. Schilpp, P. A., New York, 1959, pp. 537-61.Google Scholar

28 The Philosophy of C. D. Broad (ed. by P. A. Schilpp), p. 813.Google Scholar

29 For my discussion of Broad's views on sense-perception I have derived enormous help from many relevant articles by G. E. Moore and Professor John Wisdom, and from Martin Lean's Woodbridge Prize Essay, Sense-Perception and Matter (1953); and also, of course, from the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein.Google Scholar

30 See e.g. Broad, C. D., Ethics (ed. by Lewy, C.) (Dordrecht, Boston, Lancaster, 1985), pp. 86–96,CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Broad's Five Types of Ethical Theory, (London, 1930), passim, and especially Chapter II on Joseph Butler, pp. 53–83.Google Scholar

31 See e.g. Professor G. H. von Wright's essay ‘Broad on Induction and Probability’ in the Schilpp Volume on Broad, pp. 313-352.Google Scholar

32 In Broad's article ‘Philosophy and Common Sense’ published in Inquiry, Vol. I, no. 2, 1959, as reprinted in G. E. Moore: Essays in Retrospect, (ed. by Alice, Ambrose and Morris, Lazerowitz), (London and New York, 1970), pp. 193–203, at p. 203.Google Scholar

33 In Contemporary British Philosophy, 2nd Series (ed. by Muirhead, J. H.) (London and New York, 1925), pp. 193–223.Google Scholar

34 The Problems of Philosophy (London, 1912), p. 17.Google Scholar

35 ‘A Reply to My Critics’, The Philosophy of G. E. Moore (ed. by Schilpp, P. A.) (London and New York, 1942), p. 637.Google Scholar

36 The Mind and its place in Nature, p. 182.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., p. 183.

38 The Mind and its place in Nature, p. 666.Google Scholar

39 Oedipus at Colonus, lines 1211-48.Google Scholar

40 Ibid., lines 668-719.

41 Broad's, C. D.Ethics (ed. by Lewy, C.), (Dordrecht, 1985), p. 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Broad's, C. D.Ethics (ed. by Lewy, C.), (Dordrecht, 1985), p. 24–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Broad's, C. D. Biography of John Locke, printed in Ethics and the History of Philosophy (London, 1952), p. 39.Google Scholar