Biography:Oswald Hanfling
Oswald Hanfling | |
|---|---|
_in_1973.jpg) Hanfling in 1972 | |
| Born | 21 December 1927 Berlin, Germany |
| Died | 25 October 2005 (aged 77) |
| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Birkbeck College, University of London |
| Thesis | Pleasure, Pain and Emotion (1971) |
| Doctoral advisor | David Hamlyn |
| Influences | Ludwig Wittgenstein |
| Academic work | |
| Discipline | Philosophy |
| Institutions | Open University |
Oswald Hanfling (21 December 1927 – 25 October 2005) was an ordinary language philosopher who worked at the UK's Open University from 1970, until his retirement in 1993. At the Open University he, together with Stuart Brown and Godfrey Vesey, pioneered the teaching of philosophy to a higher-education standard via the means of BBC-broadcast radio and television programmes and written course books.[1]
Early life
Oswald Hanfling was born in Berlin in 1927. His parents were Jewish and when their business was vandalised on Kristallnacht in 1938, he was sent to England by Kindertransport and lived in Bedford with a foster family. After the Second World War, he traced his family to Israel, with the help of the Red Cross.[2]
Hanfling left school at the age of 14 to become an "office boy". For the next 25 years he worked in business, eventually running his own employment agency for au pairs.[2] He picked up the English language through reading comics as a young boy.[3]
Education
Bored by business, Hanfling studied 'A' levels and then enrolled on a Bachelor of Arts in philosophy by correspondence at Birkbeck College. He gained a first, then embarked on a PhD, which he completed in 1971.
Academic work
Hanfling was appointed as a lecturer at the Open University in 1970, and worked there until retiring as a professor in 1993. The primary influence on his thought was the later Wittgenstein.[3] He was a regular attendee of the meetings of the British Society of Aesthetics and a contributor to their journal.[4]
Publications
- Logical Positivism, Blackwell, 1981, ISBN 978-0-631-12853-3[5]
- Essential Readings in Logical Positivism, (Editor), Blackwell, 1981, ISBN 978-0631125662
- The Quest For Meaning, Blackwell,1987, ISBN 978-0-631-15333-7[6]
- Life and Meaning: A Philosophical Reader (Editor), Blackwell, 1988, ISBN 978-0-631-15784-7[6]
- Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989, ISBN 978-0-333-47575-1[7]
- Philosophical Aesthetics (Contributing Editor), Blackwell, 1992 ISBN 978-0-631-18035-7
- Hanfling's contributions being "The Problem of Definition', "Aesthetic Qualities", and "The Ontology of Art".[8]
- "I heard a plaintive memory" in: (ed.) A. Phillips, Griffiths, Wittgenstein Centenary Essays, Royal Institute of Philosophy supplement 28 (1991)
- Ayer, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1997, ISBN 978-0-7538-0182-6
- Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Bent and Genius of Our Tongue, Routledge, 2003, ISBN 978-0-415-32277-5[9]
- Wittgenstein and the Human Form of Life, Routledge, 2002, ISBN 0-415-25645-3[10]
References
- ↑ Lewis, Peter B. (2006) (in en), Hanfling, Oswald, Continuum, doi:10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-975469-4, https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780199754694.001.0001/acref-9780199754694-e-908, retrieved 2023-12-03
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Anon (9 November 2005). "Oswald Hanfling" (in en). The Times. ISSN 0140-0460. https://www.thetimes.com/comment/register/article/oswald-hanfling-dsjtkvj3xtf.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Glock, Hans-Johann (2005-11-29). "Oswald Hanfling" (in en-GB). The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/nov/29/guardianobituaries.obituaries.
- ↑ "OSWALD HANFLING (1927–2005)" (in en). The British Journal of Aesthetics 46 (1): NP. 2006-01-01. doi:10.1093/aesthj/ayj015. ISSN 1468-2842. http://academic.oup.com/bjaesthetics/article/46/1/NP/26616/OSWALD-HANFLING-19272005.
- ↑ O'Hear, Anthony (1983). "Review of Logical Positivism". The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 34 (3): 303–306. doi:10.1093/bjps/34.3.303. ISSN 0007-0882. https://www.jstor.org/stable/687328.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Phillips, D. Z. (1989). "Review of The Quest for Meaning; Life and Meaning, Oswald Hanfling". Philosophy 64 (248): 266–268. doi:10.1017/S0031819100044557. ISSN 0031-8191. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3751415.
- ↑ Ambrose, Alice (1992). "Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy". International Studies in Philosophy 24 (3): 148–149. doi:10.5840/intstudphil1992243141. ISSN 0270-5664. http://www.pdcnet.org/oom/service?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&rft_val_fmt=&rft.imuse_id=intstudphil_1992_0024_0003_0148_0149&svc_id=info:www.pdcnet.org/collection.
- ↑ Bredin, Hugh. "Philosophical Aesthetics: An Introduction." The British Journal of Aesthetics, vol. 33, no. 3, July 1993, pp. 287+.
- ↑ Chirkova, Katia (2002). "Review of Philosophy and Ordinary Language: The Bent and Genius of Our Tongue". Language 78 (1): 202–203. doi:10.1353/lan.2002.0006. ISSN 0097-8507. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3086684.
- ↑ McDougall, Derek A.. "Critical Notice: Hanfling, Wittgenstein and The Human Form of Life" (in en-GB). https://www.britishwittgensteinsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/crit_notice_hanfling_witt_human_form_of_life.pdf.
External links
Open University television programmes presented by Hanfling available for viewing via their digital archives:
- "Laws of nature and explanation" (1973) which features a discussion between R. B. Braithwaite and Kenneth Baublys.
- "Kant 2 : moral conflict" (1972) which features a discussion between Bernard WIlliams and Allen Phillips Griffiths
 |  |
