Jones, Peter 1935- (Peter Howard Jones)

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Jones, Peter 1935- (Peter Howard Jones)

PERSONAL:

Born December 18, 1935; son of Thomas Leslie and Hilda Croesora Jones; Married Elizabeth Jean Roberton, October 8, 1960: children: Rachel, Laura. Education: Attended Queens College, Cambridge University. Hobbies and other interests: Opera, chamber music, architecture, art, travel.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Edinburgh, Scotland.

CAREER:

Writer, philosopher, biographer, and educator. University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, research scholar, 1961-63; University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, assistant lecturer, 1963-64; University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Scotland, lecturer and reader, 1964-84, professor, 1984-98, emeritus professor of philosophy, 1998—. Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, Edinburgh, director, 1986-2000. University of Rochester, Rochester, NY, visiting professor, 1969-70; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, visiting professor, 1973 and 1983; Carleton College, Northfield, MN, visiting professor, 1974; Oklahoma University, Norman, visiting professor, 1978; Baylor University, Waco, TX, visiting professor, 1978; University of Malta, Msida, visiting professor, 1993; Belarusian State University, Minsk, Belarus, visiting professor, 1997; Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, visiting professor, 2001, 2002, and 2004— United Kingdom Government Spoliation advisory panel, 2000—. National Museums of Scotland, trustee, 1987-99; University of Edinburgh Development Trust, trustee, 1990-96.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Visiting fellow, Humanities Research Center, Australian National University, 1984 and 2002; visiting fellow, Calgary Institute for the Humanities, 1992; fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1989, the Royal Society of Arts, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland.

WRITINGS:

Philosophy and the Novel, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1975.

Hume's Sentiments, Edingurgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1982.

(Editor, with David Daiches and Jean Jones) A Hotbed of Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment, 1730-1790, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1986.

Ove Arup: Masterbuilder of the Twentieth Century, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2006.

EDITOR

Philosophy and Science in the Scottish Enlightenment, Donald (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1988.

The Science of Man in the Scottish Enlightenment, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1989.

(With Andrew S. Skinner) Adam Smith Reviewed, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1992.

James Hutton: Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge, Thoemmes (Bristol, England), 1999.

(With Martin Fitzpatrick) The Enlightenment World, Routledge (London, England), 2004.

Henry Home, Lord Kames: Elements of Criticism, Liberty Fund (Indianapolis, IN), 2005.

The Reception of David Hume in Europe, Thoemmes Continuum (London, England), 2005.

SIDELIGHTS:

Scottish author and academic Peter Jones is a philosopher and educator whose lengthy career began in 1961. Jones spent more than three decades at the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, before retiring in 1998, becoming emeritus professor of philosophy. Several of his works cover major figures in philosophy, including Adam Smith and David Hume, while others are concerned with major philosophical periods such as the Scottish Enlightenment.

In Ove Arup: Masterbuilder of the Twentieth Century, Jones presents a detailed biography of one of the more influential figures in twentieth-century architecture and engineering. Born in England in 1895 to a Danish father and Norwegian mother, Arup retained a Danish cultural identity throughout his life. He became known as an engineer who endorsed a practical, commonsense approach to building. He worked as an engineer during the 1920s and 1930s, and designed air-raid shelters during World War II. In 1946, Arup founded an architectural and engineering construction firm, still in business today, that has been deeply involved with some of the largest and most notable building projects in the world. Arup felt that engineers should be involved in a building project from the start, not only after architects had settled on a design. He formulated a much-emulated business model that allowed professionals from many disciplines to be involved throughout the life of a project. He also endorsed an approach to building that encouraged harmony between a project's design, structure, and materials. Throughout his career, Arup influenced, and was in turn influenced by, the most important trends and developments of twentieth-century building, design, and architecture. Arup and his firm were responsible for iconic structures such as the Sydney Opera House in Australia, the Millennium Bridge in London, the Olympic Village in Beijing, and for innovative, large-scale projects such as the Channel Tunnel, the underground connection beneath the English Channel that links England and France.

In addition to exploring Arup's considerable professional accomplishments, Jones also explores "Arup's irrepressible bohemian personality and private life," noted Library Journal reviewer Russell T. Clement. He looks at Arup's environmental and social concerns, his aesthetic sense, and his distinctive personality, calling Arup an "endlessly doodling, whimsically rhyming, cigar-waving, beret-wearing, accordion squeezing, ceaselessly smiling, foreign sounding, irresistibly charming, mumbling giant," according to a reviewer on the Embassy of Denmark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark Web site.

Jones "has achieved a neat balance between Ove the man and Ove the engineer, drawing on an extensive archive of personal papers, company records, correspondence, articles, lectures, and photos," observed Anne Watson, writing in Architecture Australia. The reviewer on the Embassy of Denmark, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark Web site named Jones's work a "fascinating study of one of the greatest structural designers of the twentieth century." In Jones's telling of his life story, "Arup emerges as endlessly stimulating, childlike, rigorous, maverick, and deeply humane," commented Matthew Sturgis in the London Telegraph.

Jones told CA: "I first became interested in writing due to frustration over how often other people were wrong.

"As a teenager I was influenced most by the authors Guy de Maupassant, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Marcel Proust; then I encountered David Hume and Denis Diderot.

"My writing process involves voracious reading before numerous drafts.

"The most surprising thing I have learned as a writer is how few people read carefully and thoughtfully, and how valuable are the few who do. I am also surprised by how each successive book wipes my memory of almost everything I have written previously—or is this merely a function of old age?

"My favorite book is my biography of Ove Arup, because there was a good deal of implicit autobiography involved."