Background
Paton, Herbert James was born on March 30, 1887 in Perthshire.
philosopher university professor
Paton, Herbert James was born on March 30, 1887 in Perthshire.
University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford.
He served in the Admiralty"s Intelligence Division during the First World War and became an expert on Polish affairs in which capacity he attended the Versailles conference in 1919. From 1917 to 1922 he was Fellow and Praelector in Classics and Philosophy at Queen"s College, Oxford and was Dean of the College. He was the White"s Professor of Moral Philosophy from 1937 to 1952.
Main publications:
(1927) The Good Will: A Study of the Coherence Theory of Goodness London: Allen & Unwin. (1936) Kant's Metaphysic of Experience. A Commentary on the First Half of the Kritik der reinen Vernunft, London: Allen & Unwin.
(1947) The Categorical Imperative: A Study in Kant's Moral Philosophy, London: Hutchinson.
(1951) In Defence of Reason, London: Hutchinson.
(1955) The Modern Predicament: A Study in the Philosophy of Religion, London: Allen & Unwin.
Secondary literature:
Cross, R. C. (1956) ‘The modern predicament’, Philosophical Quarterly 6: 359-65.
Walsh, W. H. (1970) ‘Herbert James Paton: 1887 1969’, Proceedings of the British Academy 56: 293308.
H. J. Paton's first book was basically a work of idealist ethics. However, he was mainly concerned to interpret the work of Kant, defending it from some of the commonly accepted criticisms of his time, especially those of Caird, Prichard and Kemp Smith. He helped to raise the standard of exegesis of some of Kant’s most difficult texts to a new level. But he tended to explain Kant in Kantian terms and his critics sometimes complained at his lack of critical distance and failure to explain Kant to their satisfaction. Although his reputation was primarily that of a scholar and teacher, Paton retained a sympathy for idealism and metaphysics. His 1951 book was critical of the analytical philosophy that had by then established itself in Oxford. In this book he argues that ‘the main work.. of philosophy is to be synoptic.. to fit our different experiences and our different theories, as far as may be, into a consistent whole’. In his The Modern Predicament (1955) he argues that the only ground for religious belief is religious experience rather than argumentation. Philosophy can show, in the manner of Kant’s critical philosophy, that the world as science sees it does not include the whole of reality.