Dorothy Mary Emmet (; 29 September 1904,

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, London – 20 September 2000,

Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...

) was a British

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and head of

Manchester University The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

's philosophy department for over twenty years. With Margaret Masterman and Richard Braithwaite she was a founder member of the Epiphany Philosophers. She was the doctoral advisor of

Alasdair MacIntyre Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (12 January 1929 – 21 May 2025) was a Scottish-American philosopher who contributed to moral and political philosophy as well as history of philosophy and theology. MacIntyre's '' After Virtue'' (1981) is one of ...

and Robert Austin Markus. Emmet was educated at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford, where she took first-class honours in 1927.

Positions held

*Commonwealth Fellowship at

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

*Tutor at

Somerville College, Oxford Somerville College is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. It began admitting men in 1994. The colle ...

*Lecturer in philosophy at Armstrong College,

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(now

Newcastle University Newcastle University (legally the University of Newcastle upon Tyne) is a public research university based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. It has overseas campuses in Singapore and Malaysia. The university is a red brick university and a mem ...

) in 1932 *She joined Manchester University as a lecturer in the philosophy of religion in 1938. She was named reader in philosophy in 1945 and was appointed Sir Samuel Hall professor of philosophy in 1946. *President of the

Aristotelian Society The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London. History Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...

in 1953–54. *Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge in 1966

Publications

*'' Whitehead's Philosophy of Organism'' (1932) *'' The Nature of Metaphysical Thinking'' (1945) *Annual philosophical lecture to the

British Academy The British Academy for the Promotion of Historical, Philosophical and Philological Studies is the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and the social sciences. It was established in 1902 and received its royal charter in the sa ...

(1949) *The Stanton lectures in

(1950–53) *''Function, Purpose and Powers'' (1958) *'' Rules, Roles and Relations'' (1966) *'' Sociological Theory and Philosophical Analysis'' (1970; co-edited with

). *'' 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)

Sources

Obituary: Dorothy Emmet
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

,'' 27 September 2000
Dorothy Emmet
''Times'' obituary, 8 October 2000 – archived by

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* James A. Bradley, André Cloots, Helmut Maaßen and Michel Weber (eds.),
European Studies in Process Thought, Vol. I. In Memoriam Dorothy Emmet
', Leuven, European Society for Process Thought, 2003 (). * Leemon McHenry,
Dorothy M. Emmet (1904–2000)
" in Michel Weber and Will Desmond (eds.).
Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought
' (Frankfurt / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2008, pp. 649 sq.). Cf. Ronny Desmet & Michel Weber (edited by),
Whitehead. The Algebra of Metaphysics. Applied Process Metaphysics Summer Institute Memorandum
', Louvain-la-Neuve, Les Éditions Chromatika, 2010. * Leemon McHenry, "EMMET, Dorothy Mary (1904–2000)" ''Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Philosophers'', edited by Stuart Brown, Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2005, pp. 266–268.

External links

* 1904 births 2000 deaths British philosophers of religion British metaphysicians British women philosophers Presidents of the Aristotelian Society 20th-century British philosophers Fellows of Somerville College, Oxford {{reli-philo-bio-stub