John Niemeyer Findlay (; 25 November 1903 – 27 September 1987), usually cited as J. N. Findlay, was a South African

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 ...

Education and career

Findlay read classics and philosophy first at Pretoria High School for Boys, then from 1919 as an undergraduate at Transvaal University College, where he became fascinated with the Theosophical Society’s blend of Oriental religious beliefs, which developed into a serious study of Hindu, Buddhist, and Neoplatonist writings. He taught himself enough Sanskrit to read the ''Bhagavad-Gita''. Findlay earned a BA at Transvaal in 1922 and an MA in 1924. On the award of a Rhodes Scholarship, from 1924 to 1926, he studied at Balliol College, Oxford. At Oxford he gained a first in ''literae humaniores'', familiarly known as " Greats", a combination of philosophy and ancient history, in 1926. He stayed on for a fragment of a third year before returning to South Africa in 1927 as lecturer in philosophy at Transvaal University College. From 1927 to 1948 he held appointments not only at the University of Transvaal (1927–1934) but also at the

University of Otago The University of Otago () is a public university, public research university, research collegiate university based in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand. Founded in 1869, Otago is New Zealand's oldest university and one of the oldest universities in ...

in New Zealand (1934–1945), then back in South Africa first at Rhodes University College at Grahamstown, then at the University of Natal at Pietermaritzburg (1945–1948). During this time Findlay made a number of visits to Europe and North America - briefly to Berlin and Cambridge and more extensively to Graz in Austria and to Berkeley, Chicago, New York and Harvard. At Graz he studied under Ernst Mally and received a doctorate on Meinong in 1933. He had taught himself German, a language in which he was fluent. Findlay's periods abroad enabled him to meet not only Carnap, Quine, and Heidegger, but also Wittgenstein. In Graz he became a member of a group which met with Wittgenstein each Tuesday. His responses to Meinong, to Meinong's teacher, Brentano, and to Wittgenstein 'each played a crucial part in enabling Findlay to develop his own distinctive point of view', according to Alasdair MacIntyre. Findlay left South Africa for the United Kingdom in 1948, where he was professor of philosophy at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne (1948–1951) and at King's College, London (1951–1966). Following retirement from his chair at London (1966) and a year at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

, Findlay continued to teach full-time for more than twenty years, first as Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics at

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...

(1967–1972), then as University Professor and Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy (succeeding

Peter Bertocci Peter Bertocci (1910–1989) was an American philosopher and Borden Parker Bowne professor of philosophy, emeritus, at Boston University. He was a president of the Metaphysical Society of America The Metaphysical Society of America (MSA) is a ...

) at

Boston University Boston University (BU) is a Private university, private research university in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. BU was founded in 1839 by a group of Boston Methodism, Methodists with its original campus in Newbury (town), Vermont, Newbur ...

(1972–1987). Findlay was 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 ...

from 1955 to 1956 and president of the

Metaphysical Society of America The Metaphysical Society of America (MSA) is a philosophy, philosophical organization founded by Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul Weiss in 1950. As stated in its constitution, "The purpose of the Metaphysical Society of America is the study of real ...

from 1974 to 1975, as well as a Fellow of both 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 ...

and the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

. He was also an Editorial Advisor of the journal ''

Dionysius The name Dionysius (; ''Dionysios'', "of Dionysus"; ) was common in classical and post-classical times. Etymologically it is a nominalized adjective formed with a -ios suffix from the stem Dionys- of the name of the Greek god, Dionysus, parallel ...

''. A chair for visiting professors at Boston University carries his name, as does a biennial award given for the best book in metaphysics, as judged by the Metaphysical Society of America. Findlay betrayed a great commitment to the welfare and formation of generations of students ( Leroy S. Rouner was fond of introducing him as "

Plotinus Plotinus (; , ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius ...

incarnate"), teaching philosophy in one college classroom after another for sixty-two consecutive academic years. On 10 September 2012 Findlay was voted the 8th "most underappreciated philosopher active in the U.S. from roughly 1900 through mid-century" in a poll conducted among readers of Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog, finishing behind

George Santayana George Santayana (born Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952) was a Spanish-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised and educated in the Un ...

Alfred North Whitehead Alfred North Whitehead (15 February 1861 – 30 December 1947) was an English mathematician and philosopher. He created the philosophical school known as process philosophy, which has been applied in a wide variety of disciplines, inclu ...

, and

Clarence Irving Lewis Clarence Irving Lewis (April 12, 1883 – February 3, 1964) was an American academic philosopher. He is considered the progenitor of modern modal logic and the founder of conceptual pragmatism. First a noted logician, he later branched into epis ...

. Findlay's autobiographical essay "Confessions of Theory and Life" is printed in ''Transcendence and the Sacred'' (1981). Findlay's "My Life” is found in ''Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay'' (1985).

Work

Rational mysticism

At a time when

scientific materialism Metaphysical naturalism (also called ontological naturalism, philosophical naturalism and antisupernaturalism) is a philosophical worldview which holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by ...

positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...

linguistic analysis In the study of language, description or descriptive linguistics is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is actually used (or how it was used in the past) by a speech community. François & Ponsonnet (2013). All acad ...

, and

ordinary language philosophy Ordinary language philosophy (OLP) is a philosophical methodology that sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in misunderstandings philosophers develop by distorting or forgetting how words are ordinarily used to convey meaning in ...

were the core academic ideas in most of the English-speaking world, Findlay championed

phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (Peirce), a branch of philosophy according to Charles Sanders Peirce (1839� ...

, revived

Hegelianism Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

, and wrote works that were inspired by

Theosophy Theosophy is a religious movement established in the United States in the late 19th century. Founded primarily by the Russian Helena Blavatsky and based largely on her writings, it draws heavily from both older European philosophies such as Neop ...

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

, Plotinus, and

Idealism Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysics, metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, Spirit (vital essence), spirit, or ...

. In his books published in the 1960s, including two series of

Gifford Lectures The Gifford Lectures () are an annual series of lectures which were established in 1887 by the will of Adam Gifford, Lord Gifford at the four ancient universities of Scotland: St Andrews, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh. Their purpose is to "pro ...

, Findlay developed

rational mysticism Rational mysticism, which encompasses both rationalism and mysticism, is a term used by scholars, researchers, and other intellectuals, some of whom engage in studies of how altered states of consciousness or transcendence such as trance, visions ...

. According to this

mystical Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight ...

system, "the philosophical perplexities, e.g., concerning universals and particulars, mind and body, knowledge and its objects, the knowledge of other minds," as well as those of free will and determinism, causality and teleology, morality and justice, and the existence of temporal objects, are human experiences of deep

antinomies In philosophy, an antinomy (Ancient Greek: 'against' + 'law') is a real or apparent contradiction between two conclusions, both of which seem justified. It is a term used in logic and epistemology, particularly in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. ...

and absurdities about the world. Findlay's conclusion is that these necessitate the postulation of higher spheres, or "latitudes", where objects' individuality, categorical distinctiveness and material constraints are diminishing, lesser in each latitude than in the one below it. On the highest spheres, existence is evaluative and meaningful more than anything else, and Findlay identifies it with the idea of The

Absolute Absolute may refer to: Companies * Absolute Entertainment, a video game publisher * Absolute Radio, (formerly Virgin Radio), independent national radio station in the UK * Absolute Software Corporation, specializes in security and data risk ma ...

Husserl and Hegel

Findlay translated into English

Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in ...

's '' Logische Untersuchungen'' (''Logical Investigations''), which he regarded as the author's best work, representing a developmental stage when the idea of phenomenological bracketing was not yet taken as the basis of a philosophical system, covering in fact for loose

subjectivism Subjectivism is the doctrine that "our own mental activity is the only unquestionable fact of our experience", instead of shared or communal, and that there is no external or objective truth. While Thomas Hobbes was an early proponent of subjecti ...

. To Findlay, the work was also one of the peaks of philosophy generally, suggesting superior alternatives both for overly minimalistic or naturalistic efforts in

ontology Ontology is the philosophical study of existence, being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of realit ...

and for Ordinary Language treatments of

consciousness Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...

and thought. Findlay also contributed final editing and wrote addenda to translations of

Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...

's ''Logic'' and ''

Phenomenology of Spirit ''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (or ''The Phenomenology of Mind''; ) is the most consequential philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel described the 1807 work, a ladder to the greater philosophical system of the '' Encyclopaed ...

''.

Wittgenstein

Findlay was first a follower, and then an outspoken critic of

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. From 1929 to 1947, Witt ...

. He denounced his three theories of meaning, arguing against the idea of Use, prominent in Wittgenstein's later period and in his followers, that it is insufficient for an analysis of meaning without such notions as

connotation A connotation is a commonly understood cultural or emotional association that any given word or phrase carries, in addition to its explicit or literal meaning, which is its denotation. A connotation is frequently described as either positive or ...

and

denotation In linguistics and philosophy, the denotation of a word or expression is its strictly literal meaning. For instance, the English word "warm" denotes the property of having high temperature. Denotation is contrasted with other aspects of meaning in ...

, implication,

syntax In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...

and most originally, pre-existent meanings, in the mind or the external world, that determine linguistic ones, such as Husserl has evoked. Findlay credits Wittgenstein with great formal, aesthetic and literary appeal, and of directing well-deserved attention to

semantics Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...

and its difficulties.

Works

Books

*''Meinong's Theory of Objects'', Oxford University Press, 1933; 2nd ed. as '' Meinong's Theory of Objects and Values'', 1963 *'' Hegel: A Re-examination'', London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Macmillan, 1958 ( Muirhead Library of Philosophy) *''Values and Intentions: A Study in Value-theory and Philosophy of Mind'', London: Allen & Unwin, 1961 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) *'' Language, Mind and Value: Philosophical Essays'', London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1963 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) *''The Discipline of the Cave'', London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1966 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) (

1964–196

*''The Transcendence of the Cave'', London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1967 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) (

1965–196

*''Axiological Ethics'', London: Macmillan, 1970 *''Ascent to the Absolute: Metaphysical Papers and Lectures'', London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1970 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) *'' iarchive:psychecerebrum0000find, Psyche and Cerebrum'', Aquinas lecture. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1972 *'' Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines'', London: Routledge and Kegan Paul/New York: Humanities Press, 1974 *'' Plato and Platonism'', New York: New York Times Book Co., 1976 *'' Kant and the Transcendental Object'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981 *''Wittgenstein: A Critique'', London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984

Articles and book chapters

Time: A Treatment of Some Puzzles"
, '' Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy'', Vol. 19, Issue 13 (December 1941): 216–235, reprinted in ''Language, Mind and Value''
"Morality by Convention"
''

Mind The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...

'', Vol. 33, No. 210 (1944): 142–169, reprinted in ''Language, Mind and Value''
"Can God's Existence Be Disproved?
, ''

'', Vol. 37, No. 226 (1948): 176–183; reprinted in ''Language, Mind and Value,'' and, with discussion, in Flew, A. and MacIntyre, A. C., (eds.), '' New Essays in Philosophical Theology'', New York: Macmillan, 1955
"Linguistic Approach to Psychophysics"
'' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'', 1949–1950, reprinted in ''Language, Mind and Value''
"The Justification of Attitudes"
''

'', Vol. 43, No. 250 (1954): 145–161, reprinted in ''Language, Mind and Value''
"I.—Some Merits of Hegelianism: The Presidential Address,"
''Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'', Volume 56, Issue 1, 1 June 1956, pp. 1–24 * “The Structure of the Kingdom of Ends”, Henrietta Hertz Lecture, read at the British Academy, (1957)
"Use, Usage and Meaning"
'' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society'', Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 35. (1961), pp. 223–242
“The Systematic Unity of Value,”
in ''Akten Des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses Für Philosophie'', (1968) Reprinted in ''Ascent to the Absolute'' * “Hegel and the Philosophy of Physics”, in J. J. O’Malley et al (eds.) '' The Legacy of Hegel: Proceedings of the Marquette Hegel Symposium 1970'' (1973) * "Foreword", in Frederick G. Weiss, ed., '' Hegel: The Essential Writings'', Harper & Row/Harper Torchbooks, 1974. * "Foreword", in '' Hegel’s Logic'',

William Wallace Sir William Wallace (, ; Norman French: ; 23 August 1305) was a Scottish knight who became one of the main leaders during the First War of Scottish Independence. Along with Andrew Moray, Wallace defeated an English army at the Battle of St ...

(trans.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1975.

Foreword
, in Hegel's ''Phenomenology of Spirit'', Oxford University Press, 1977.
Analysis of the Text
, in ''Phenomenology of Spirit'', Oxford University Press, 1977: 495–592.

*" iarchive:mythsymbolrealit0000unse/page/165/mode/1up, The Myths of Plato", ''

'', Volume II (1978): 19–34, (reprinted in Alan Olson, ed., ''Myth'', ''Symbol'', ''and Reality'''','' South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, 165–84) *"Confessions of Theory and Life" in '' Transcendence and the Sacred'' (1981) *“ The Impersonality of God” in '' God, the Contemporary Discussion'', Frederick Sontag & M. Darrol Bryant (eds) (1982)
Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small"
(1983) ''The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter,'' 113. * “The Hegelian Treatment of Biology and Life”, in ''Hegel and the Sciences'', Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (eds), (1984) * "My Life” and "My Encounters with Wittgenstein" in '' Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay'' (1985)
Findlay's Nachlass
(list of posthumous essays derived from Findlay’s lecture notes and published in ''

The Philosophical Forum ''The Philosophical Forum'' is a philosophy journal published by Wiley-Blackwell. It is currently edited by Alexus McLeod. History ''The Philosophical Forum'' was founded in 1943 as an annual philosophy journal, published by the Boston Universit ...

'')

Translations

* ''Logical Investigations'' (''Logische Untersuchungen''), by Edmund Husserl, with an introduction by J.N. Findlay, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (1970)

Notes

References

*Robert S. Cohen, Richard M. Martin, and Merold Westphal (eds.), '' Studies in the Philosophy of J.N. Findlay'', Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1985 (Includes autobiographical note by Findlay and his account of encounters with Wittgenstein). *Bockja Kim, '' Morality as the End of Philosophy: The Teleological Dialectic of the Good in J.N. Findlay's Philosophy of Religion'', University Press of America, 1999. *Michele Marchetto, '' Impersonal Ethics: John Niemeyer Findlay's Value-theory'', Avebury, 1996. * Douglas P. Lackey
"John Niemeyer Findlay"
''

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy The ''Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (''SEP'') is a freely available online philosophy resource published and maintained by Stanford University, encompassing both an online encyclopedia of philosophy and peer-reviewed original publication ...

''.

External links

John Niemeyer Findlay 1903–1987

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 ...

, Hegel Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 2 (number 16), Autumn/Winter 1987, pp. 4–7. (Open Access).
John Niemeyer Findlay 1903–1987

, ''

Proceedings of the British Academy The ''Proceedings of the British Academy'' is a series of academic volumes on subjects in the humanities and social sciences. The first volume was published in 1905. Up to 1991, the volumes (appearing annually from 1927) mostly consisted of the te ...

'', Volume 111, 2001, pp. 429–512.
John Niemeyer Findlay
tribute page by Dr. Sanford L. Drob
Gifford Lecture Series – Biography – John Niemeyer Findlay
{{DEFAULTSORT:Findlay, J. N. 1903 births 1987 deaths 20th-century American philosophers Phenomenologists Academic staff of the University of Pretoria University of Pretoria alumni Academics of King's College London Academic staff of the University of Otago Academic staff of Rhodes University Academics of Newcastle University Yale University faculty Boston University faculty University of Texas at Austin faculty Presidents of the Metaphysical Society of America South African Rhodes Scholars 20th-century mystics South African people of Scottish descent Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Fellows of the British Academy