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Antony Flew,
the son of a Methodist minister, was born in London,
England. He was educated at St. Faith's Preparatory School,
Cambridge followed by Kingswood School, Bath. During the
Second World War he studied Japanese at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, and was a Royal Air Force
intelligence officer.
After the war, Flew achieved a first class degree in Literae
Humaniores at St John's College, Oxford. Flew was a graduate
student of Gilbert Ryle, prominent in ordinary language
philosophy. Both Flew and Ryle were among many Oxford
philosophers fiercely criticized in Ernest Gellner's book
Words and Things. A 1954 debate with Michael Dummett
over backward causation was an early highlight in Flew's
career.
Flew was a Lecturer in Philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford
from 1949 to 1950, following which he was a lecturer for
four years at the University of Aberdeen, and a Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Keele for twenty years.
Between 1973 and 1983 he was Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Reading. Upon his retirement, Flew took up a
half-time post for a few years at York University, Toronto.
While an
undergraduate, Flew attended the weekly meetings of C. S.
Lewis's Socratic Club fairly regularly. Although he found
Lewis to be "an eminently reasonable man" and "by far the
most powerful of Christian apologists for the sixty or more
years following his founding of that club," he was not
persuaded by Lewis's argument from morality as found in
Mere Christianity. Other philosophical proofs for God's
existence also fail, according to Flew. The ontological
argument in particular is false because it is based on the
premise that the concept of Being can be derived from the
concept of Goodness. Only the scientific forms of the
teleological argument impress Flew as being decisive.
In God and Philosophy (1966) and The Presumption
of Atheism (1984), Flew earned his fame by arguing that
one should presuppose atheism until evidence of a God
surfaces. He still stands behind this evidentialist
approach, though he has been persuaded in recent years that
such evidence exists, and his current position appears to be
deism.
On May 11, 2006,
Antony Flew accepted the second "Phillip E. Johnson Award
for Liberty and Truth" from Biola University. The award,
named for its first recipient, was given to Flew "for his
lifelong commitment to free and open inquiry and to standing
fast against intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and
expression." When informed of his award, Flew remarked, "In
light of my work and publications in this area and the
criticism I’ve received for changing my position, I
appreciate receiving this award."
Information above drawn from
www.wikipedia.com. |
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