Gwilym Ellis Lane Owen

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Gwilym Ellis Lane Owen, FBA (18 May 1922 – 10 July 1982), who published as G. E. L. Owen, was a British philosopher, concerned with the history of Ancient Greek philosophy. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. where his undergraduate career was interrupted by five years of military service. He became the foremost authority on Aristotle in his generation, at least in the English-speaking world.

Fellow of the British Academy award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences

Fellowship of the British Academy (FBA) is an award granted by the British Academy to leading academics for their distinction in the humanities and social sciences. There are three kinds of fellowship

  1. Fellows, for scholars resident in the United Kingdom
  2. Corresponding Fellows, for scholars not resident in the UK
  3. Honorary Fellows, an honorary academic title

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From 1973 until his death Owen was the fourth Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. An undergraduate at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where after research at Durham he taught, he proceeded in 1966 to Harvard University, where his many distinguished students included Julia Annas, Gail Fine, Wilbur Knorr, Martha Nussbaum, and Nicholas P. White. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1969. [1]

The Laurence Professorship of Ancient Philosophy at Cambridge University was established in 1930 as one of the offices endowed by the bequest of Sir Perceval Maitland Laurence; it is the oldest chair of ancient philosophy in the world. One woman, Gisela Striker, has held the post, and seven men.

University of Cambridge University in Cambridge, United Kingdom

The University of Cambridge is a collegiate public research university in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Founded in 1209 and granted a Royal Charter by King Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the second-oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's fourth-oldest surviving university. The university grew out of an association of scholars who left the University of Oxford after a dispute with the townspeople. The two 'ancient universities' share many common features and are often referred to jointly as 'Oxbridge'. The history and influence of the University of Cambridge has made it one of the most prestigious universities in the world.

Julia Elizabeth Annas is a British philosopher who has taught in the United States for the last quarter-century. She is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

He is known particularly for his ideas on the development of Aristotle. [2] He has been classed with J. L. Ackrill and Gregory Vlastos as influential in creating interest in the field, in the Anglo-American context. [3] His collected papers were published posthumously under the title Logic, science and dialectic : collected papers in Greek philosophy (1986). The best account of his work is by Ackrill in Proceedings of the British Academy 70 (1984), pp. 481-499.

Aristotle philosopher in ancient Greece

Aristotle was a philosopher during the Classical period in Ancient Greece, the founder of the Lyceum and the Peripatetic school of philosophy and Aristotelian tradition. Along with his teacher Plato, he is considered the "Father of Western Philosophy". His writings cover many subjects – including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him, and it was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion.

John Lloyd Ackrill, was an English philosopher and classicist who specialized in Ancient Greek philosophy, especially the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Ackrill has been said to be, along with Gregory Vlastos and G. E. L. Owen, "one of the most important figures responsible for the upsurge of interest in ancient Greek philosophy among Anglo-American philosophers of the second half of this century".

Gregory Vlastos was a scholar of ancient philosophy, and author of several works on Plato and Socrates. A Christian, Vlastos also wrote about Christian faith. He is considered to be "a preeminent scholar on Socrates who transformed the analysis of classical philosophy."

Allegations of Sexual Assault

In an article published in 2004, philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum describes Owen as a serial sexual harasser and an alcoholic, who harassed many women. This lengthy account is somewhat misleadingly summarized by Rachel Aviv as if it were a personal interview. Aviv does not mention the important fact, emphasized in the article, that Owen harassed many women and that his pattern was the same with all. Aviv writes:: [After Nussbaum entered the graduate program in classics at Harvard in 1969] "When her thesis adviser, G.E. L. Owen, invited her to his office, served sherry, spoke about his life's sadness, and reached over to touch her breasts, [Nussbaum] says, she gently pushed him away, careful not to embarrass him.... 'I managed to keep my control with Owen, and I never said a hostile word.'" [4] The real source for this material is not a personal interview, but the article by Nussbaum, "Don't Smile Too Much: Philosophy and Women in the '70's," published in Linda Martin Alcoff, ed., SINGING IN THE FIRE: STORIES OF WOMEN IN PHILOSOPHY, Routledge.

John Cooper, philosopher and former student of Owen's, acknowledged publicly at Princeton University's 2016 Classical Philosophy Conference that, despite his great scholarship, Owen was "a very bad man."

See also

Harold F. Cherniss American classical scholar

Harold Fredrik Cherniss was an American classicist and historian of ancient philosophy. While at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, he was said to be 'the country's foremost expert on Plato and Aristotle.'

Notes

  1. ↑ http://www.degruyter.com/dg/viewarticle/j$002fagph.1983.65.issue-2$002fagph.1983.65.2.113$002fagph.1983.65.2.113.xml
  2. ↑ Charlotte Witt, The Evolution of Developmental Interpretations, p. 74, in William Robert Wians (editor), Aristotle's Philosophical Development: Problems and Prospects (1996).
  3. ↑ Bryn Mawr Classical Review 98.4.01
  4. ↑ "The Philosopher of Feelings". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2016-07-24.

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References

Academic offices
Preceded by
William Keith Chambers Guthrie 		Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy Cambridge University
1973 - 1982 		Succeeded by
Myles Burnyeat
Preceded by
D.W.Hamlyn 		President of the Aristotelian Society
1978 - 1979 		Succeeded by
A.R.White
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