Background
Donagan, Alan Harry was born on February 10, 1925 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Came to the United States, 1956, naturalized, 1983. Son of Harry Cyril and Ruby Evelyn (Evans) Donagan.
( "Let us . . . nominate this the most important theoreti...)
"Let us . . . nominate this the most important theoretical work on ethical or moral theory since John Rawls's Theory of Justice. If you have philosophical inclinations and want a good workout, this conscientious scrutiny of moral assumptions and expressions will be most rewarding. Donagan explores ways of acting in the Hebrew-Christian context, examines them in the light of natural law and rational theories, and proposes that formal patterns for conduct can emerge. All this is tightly reasoned, the argument is packed, but the language is clear."—Christian Century "The man value of this book seems to me to be that it shows the force of the Hebrew-Christian moral tradition in the hands of a creative philosopher. Throughout the book, one cannot but feel that a serious philosopher is trying to come to terms with his religious-moral background and to defend it against the prevailing secular utilitarian position which seems to dominate academic philosophy."—Bernard Gert, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226155676/?tag=2022091-20
(Modern philosophy has obscured key elements of works that...)
Modern philosophy has obscured key elements of works that distinguished the part of human behaviour that is action from that which is not. Donagan takes those elements and analyses them in terms of defensible semantics on Fregean lines.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0710211686/?tag=2022091-20
(Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide ...)
Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide spectrum of opinion, the author addresses a range of issues, including: What makes a thinker Jewish? What makes modern Jewish thought modern? How have secular Jews integrated Jewish traditional thought with agnosticism? What do Orthodox thinkers have to teach non-Orthodox Jews and vice versa? Each chapter includes a short, judiciously chosen selection from the given author, along with questions to guide the reader through the material. Short biographical essays at the end of each chapter offer the reader recommendations for further readings and provide the low-down on which books are worth the reader's while. Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers represents a decade of the author's experience teaching students ranging from undergraduate age to their seventies. This is an ideal textbook for undergraduate classes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742546063/?tag=2022091-20
(Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide ...)
Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide spectrum of opinion, the author addresses a range of issues, including: What makes a thinker Jewish? What makes modern Jewish thought modern? How have secular Jews integrated Jewish traditional thought with agnosticism? What do Orthodox thinkers have to teach non-Orthodox Jews and vice versa? Each chapter includes a short, judiciously chosen selection from the given author, along with questions to guide the reader through the material. Short biographical essays at the end of each chapter offer the reader recommendations for further readings and provide the low-down on which books are worth the reader's while. Introduction to Modern Jewish Thinkers represents a decade of the author's experience teaching students ranging from undergraduate age to their seventies. This is an ideal textbook for undergraduate classes.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0742546071/?tag=2022091-20
(From book II, Chapters XIII-XXI of Woolfson's monumental ...)
From book II, Chapters XIII-XXI of Woolfson's monumental and standard study of Spinoza. See also the first volume available from Amazon. Pages: xii+420; 5.25" x 8".
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000EARYUK/?tag=2022091-20
Donagan, Alan Harry was born on February 10, 1925 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Came to the United States, 1956, naturalized, 1983. Son of Harry Cyril and Ruby Evelyn (Evans) Donagan.
Bachelor, University Melbourne, 1946. Master of Arts, University Melbourne, 1951. Bachelor of Philosophy, Oxford University, England, 1954.
Doctor of Letters (honorary), Ripon College, 1983.
Senior lecturer University College, Canberra, Australia, 1954-1956. Assistant professor philosophy University Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1956-1957, associate professor, chairman philosophy department, 1957-1961. Professor philosophy, chairman department Indiana University, Bloomington, 1961-1964.
Professor University Illinois, Urbana, 1965-1969, University Chicago, 1970-1984, Phyllis Fay Horton professor humanities, 1977-1984. Professor philosophy California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1984-1991, Doris and Henry Dreyfuss professor philosophy, 1989-1991. Consultant Encyclopedia Britannica., Chicago, from 1971.
(Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide ...)
(Highlighting well-known Jewish thinkers from a very wide ...)
(Modern philosophy has obscured key elements of works that...)
(From book II, Chapters XIII-XXI of Woolfson's monumental ...)
(Book by Wolfson, Harry Austryn)
( "Let us . . . nominate this the most important theoreti...)
Alan Donagan was both a historian of philosophy, having written on Aquinas, Spinoza and Collingwood. and a philosopher who made significant contributions to recent debates on metaphysics, rationality and human agency. The fruitful interplay which exists between these different strands of Donagan’s work has often been noted: he displays, writes James Montmarquet, ‘equal mastery of historical and contemporary sources and a philosophical style which is highly argumentative, but never tediously so’.
In an ‘extremely valuable’ article (1963) on universal Donagan defended metaphysical realism on the basis of an argument to the best explanation. During this early period, and influenced by Popper, Donagan also wrote a series of articles on the philosophy of history in which he criticized the ‘covering-law’ model in favour of a 'situational-logic' model of historical explanation.
The underlying hostility to naturalistic views of human agency revealed in this early work has been a feature of much of Donagan's later work.
Donagan’s writings on ethics are in the natural law tradition and are deeply influenced by Aquinas and Kant. In The Theory of Morality (1977) he described a moral system against which, he claimed, all other moral theories can be judged, a ‘system of laws or precepts, binding upon rational creatures as such, the content of which is ascertainable by human reason’. The moral system in question is traditional HcbraicChristian morality and it is said to rest on the following very Kantian principle: 'It is impermissible not to respect every human being, oneself or any other, as a rational creature’.
Donagan argues that a substantial body of moral duties can be derived from this basic principle and that both the falsity of consequentialism and the impossibility of genuine moral conflict follow from it.
The book attracted widespread respect, even from those who disagreed with its central thesis. A. Schwartz (1978) concludes that although Donagan’s arguments are not convincing, his project 'is philosophically important and interesting’.
As a presupposition of his ethics Donagan argues that there is a fundamental distinction between event-causation and agent-causation and this theme is developed in detail in the book Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action (1987). Donagan defends the view that 'actions are events explained by their doer’s choices'.
The conception is Aristotelian but it is informed, equally, by the work of Frege, Davidson and Dummet. It is a strongly libertarian account: choice is characterized as an ultimate and inexplicable power of agency and as a power which, under identical circumstances, is compatible with choosing differently. Although aspects of the account, especially the account of casual waywardness, have been widely criticized, the boldness and ingenuity of the work have been greatly admired.
‘I expect it’, writes Myles Brand
(1991) ‘to occupy a place of esteem among the works on human action written in the past several decades’.
Member American Philosophical Association (president central division 1980-1981), Institut International de Philosophie, Aristotelian Society.
Married Barbara Lynn Galley, August 18, 1951.