Timothy Lauro Squire Sprigge (14 January 1932 – 11 July 2007), usually cited as T. L. S. Sprigge, was a British idealist philosopher who spent the latter portion of his career at the

University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...

, where he was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, and latterly an Emeritus Fellow.

Biography

Sprigge was educated at the Dragon School, Oxford, and

Bryanston School Bryanston School is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English Private schools in the United Kingdom, private boarding school, boarding and day school for pupils aged 13–18) located next to the village of Bryanston, and near the ...

in Dorset. He studied English at

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge Gonville and Caius College, commonly known as Caius ( ), is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1348 by Edmund Gonville, it is the fourth-oldest of the University of Cambridge's 31 colleges and ...

(1952–1955), then switched to philosophy, completing his PhD under A. J. Ayer. He taught philosophy at

University College, London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

and Sussex University before becoming Regius Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh. Long concerned with the nature of experience and the relationship between mind and reality, Sprigge was the philosopher who first posed the question made famous by

Thomas Nagel Thomas Nagel (; born July 4, 1937) is an American philosopher. He is the University Professor of Philosophy and Law Emeritus at New York University, where he taught from 1980 until his retirement in 2016. His main areas of philosophical interest ...

: "What is it like to be a bat?"Jane O'Grady
"Timothy Sprigge"
''The Guardian'', 4 September 2007. Throughout his career he argued that physicalism or materialism is not only false, but has contributed to a distortion of our moral sense. The failure to respect the rights of human beings and non-human animals is therefore largely a metaphysical error of failing to grasp the true reality of the first person, subjective perspective of consciousness, or sentience. The practice of vivisection, which gained wide acceptance with Descartes's view of animals as machines, would be an example of this failure. He was an advocate of

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

and defended an environmental ethic. The author of ''The Vindication of Absolute Idealism'' (1984), Sprigge defended a panpsychist version of

absolute idealism Absolute idealism is chiefly associated with Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher wh ...

, according to which reality consists of bits of experience combined into a certain kind of coherent whole. His work presents several new arguments in favor of the plausibility of such an account. He also defended a version of determinism in which all moments of time are intrinsically present and only relatively past or future. Time is unreal, he argued. What we experience as temporal transition is an illusion. Though a skeptic of traditional theism, Sprigge considered himself a believer in an impersonal God. He would eventually become a Unitarian. In his last book, ''The God of Metaphysics'' (2006), he argued for the existence of a "God of Philosophers" worthy of worship. Sprigge's metaphysics is a creative synthesis of

Spinoza Baruch (de) Spinoza (24 November 163221 February 1677), also known under his Latinized pen name Benedictus de Spinoza, was a philosopher of Portuguese-Jewish origin, who was born in the Dutch Republic. A forerunner of the Age of Enlightenmen ...

, F. H. Bradley,

William James William James (January 11, 1842 – August 26, 1910) was an American philosopher and psychologist. The first educator to offer a psychology course in the United States, he is considered to be one of the leading thinkers of the late 19th c ...

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 ...

and

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 ...

. Because of his metaphysical monism, panpsychism and rigid determinism, he has been referred to as "Spinoza reincarnated in the twentieth century".Leemon McHenry, "Timothy L. S. Sprigge," ''British Philosophers, 1800–2000'', Volume 262 in the series ''Dictionary of Literary Biography'', edited by Philip B. Dematteis, Peter S. Fosl, and Leemon McHenry, Detroit: Gale, 2002, pp. 266-274. A

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

for Sprigge appeared on the day he died, ''Consciousness, Reality and Value: Essays in Honour of T. L. S. Sprigge'' (Ontos Verlag). He 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 1991 to 1992 and Fellow of the

Royal Society of Edinburgh The Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE) is Scotland's national academy of science and letters. It is a registered charity that operates on a wholly independent and non-partisan basis and provides public benefit throughout Scotland. It was establis ...

. The Timothy Sprigge Room at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at the University of Edinburgh contains Sprigge's library. The Sprigge Archive is located at the Edinburgh University Library.

Works

* ''The Correspondence of Jeremy Bentham'' (1968) * ''Facts, Words and Beliefs. International Library of Philosophy and Scientific Method'' (1970) * ''Santayana: An examination of his philosophy (The Arguments of the philosophers)'' (1974) * ''The Vindication of Absolute Idealism'' (1984) * ''Theories of Existence'' (1985) * ''The Rational Foundation of Ethics'' (1988) * ''The significance of Spinoza's determinism (Mededelingen vanwege het Spinozahuis)'' (1989) * ''James and Bradley: American Truth and British Reality'' (1994) * ''The God of Metaphysics'' (2006) * ''The Phenomenology of Thought'' ed by. L. McHenry (unfinished) (2009) * ''The Importance of Subjectivity: Selected Essays in Metaphysics and Ethics'' ed by. L. McHenry (2011)

References

External links

Career, bibliography, poems

''Telegraph'' obituary
* ''Scotsman''br>obituary
* Pierfrancesco Basile and Leemon McHenry (eds.),
Consciousness, Reality and Value: Essays in Honor of T.L.S. Sprigge
', 2007. (330 p.; ) {{DEFAULTSORT:Sprigge, Timothy L.S. 1932 births 2007 deaths 20th-century British philosophers British philosophers of mind 21st-century British philosophers Academics of the University of Edinburgh Fellows of the Royal Society of Edinburgh Analytic philosophers English animal rights scholars Consequentialists Utilitarians Panpsychism Presidents of the Aristotelian Society Idealists