Kenny, Anthony 1931-
(Anthony John Patrick Kenny)

PERSONAL:

Born March 16, 1931, in Liverpool, England; son of John and Margaret Kenny; married Nancy Caroline Gayley, 1966; children: two sons. Education: Attended Gregorian University and St. Benet's Hall, Oxford.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Balliol College, Oxford University, Oxford, OX1 3BJ, England.

CAREER:

Writer, educator, and philosopher. Ordained Roman Catholic priest, 1955; curate of Roman Catholic church in Liverpool, England, 1959-63; returned to lay state, 1963; Oxford University, Oxford, England, lecturer at Exeter College and Trinity College, 1963-64; Balliol College fellow, 1964-78; Wilde Lecturer in Natural and Comparative Religion, 1969-72; Balliol College, master, 1978-89; Rhodes House, Warden, 1989-2002; Oxford University, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, 1984-2002. University of Liverpool, assistant lecturer, 1961-63; University of Edinburgh, Joint Gifford Lecturer, 1972-73; visiting professor at Stanford University, Rockefeller University, University of Chicago, University of Washington, University of Michigan, and Cornell University.

MEMBER:

British Academy (vice president).

AWARDS, HONORS:

Knighted.

WRITINGS:

Action, Emotion, and Will, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London, England), 1963, Routledge (New York, NY), 2003.

(Translator and author of notes and introduction) St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Volume 22: Dispositions for Human Acts (in Latin and English), edited by Thomas Gilby and others, McGraw (New York, NY), 1964.

Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy, Random House (New York, NY), 1968, Garland Publishing (New York, NY), 1987.

The Five Ways: Saint Thomas Aquinas' Proofs of God's Existence, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London, England), 1969.

Wittgenstein, Allen Lane (London, England), 1973, revised edition, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2006.

The Nature of the Mind, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1973.

The Anatomy of the Soul: Historical Essays in the Philosophy of Mind, Barnes & Noble (New York, NY), 1973.

The Development of Mind, Edinburgh University Press (Edinburgh, Scotland), 1974.

Will, Freedom, and Power, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1976.

The Aristotelian Ethics: A Study of the Relationship between the "Eudemian Ethics" and "Nichomachean Ethics" of Aristotle, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1979.

The God of the Philosophers, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1979.

Aristotle's Theory of the Will, Duckworth (London, England), 1979.

Freewill and Responsibility, Routledge & Kegan Paul (London, England), 1979.

Aquinas, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1980.

The Computation of Style: An Introduction to Statistics for Students of Literature and Humanities, Pergamon Press (London, England), 1982.

Faith and Reason, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

Thomas More, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1983.

The Legacy of Wittgenstein, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1984.

Wyclif, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1985. (Translator) John Wyclif, Tractatus de Universalibus, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1985.

The Ivory Tower: Essays in Philosophy and Public Policy, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1985.

The Logic of Deterrence, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1985.

A Path from Rome: An Autobiography, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1985, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

The Road to Hillsborough: The Shaping of the Anglo- Irish Agreement, Pergamon Press (London, England), 1986.

A Stylometric Study of the New Testament, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

Reason and Religion: Essays in Philosophical Theology, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1987.

The Heritage of Wisdom: Essays in the History of Philosophy, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1987.

God and Two Poets: Arthur Hugh Clough and Gerard Manley Hopkins, Sidgwick & Jackson (London, England), 1988.

The Self, Marquette University Press (Milwaukee, WI), 1988.

Managing Software: The Businessman's Guide to Software Development, Blackwell Scientific Publications (Boston, MA), 1989.

The Metaphysics of Mind, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1989.

Aristotle on the Perfect Life, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

What Is Faith?: Essays in the Philosophy of Religion, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1992.

Aquinas on Mind, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993.

A Life in Oxford, J. Murray (London, England), 1997.

A Brief History of Western Philosophy, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1998.

Descartes: A Study of His Philosophy, St. Augustine (South Bend, IN), 2000.

Frege: An Introduction to the Founder of Modern Analytic Philosophy, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 2000.

Essays on the Aristotelian Tradition, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

EDITOR

The Responsa Scholarum of the English College, Rome, two volumes, Publications of the Catholic Record Society, 1962–63.

(And contributor) Aquinas: A Collection of Critical Essays, Anchor Books (Garden City, NY), 1969.

(And translator) Rene Descartes, Philosophical Letters, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1971.

Arthur Norman Prior, Objects of Thought, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1971.

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Grammar, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1974.

Prior, The Doctrine of Propositions and Terms, Duckworth (London, England), 1976.

Prior, Papers in Logic and Ethics, Duckworth (London, England), 1976.

(And author of introduction) Rationalism, Empiricism, and Idealism, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

Wyclif in His Times, Clarendon Press (Oxford, England), 1986.

The Oxford Diaries of Arthur Hugh Clough, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1990.

The Wittgenstein Reader, Blackwell (Oxford, England), 1994, 2nd edition, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2006.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Western Philosophy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1997.

The History of the Rhodes Trust, 1902-1999, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Aquinas on Being, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2002.

Ancient Philosophy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays, Continuum (New York, NY), 2004.

Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life, Continuum (New York, NY), 2005.

A New History of Western Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

An Illustrated Brief History of Western Philosophy, 2nd edition (Kenny not associated with first edition), Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2006.

Oxford, editor, 1972-73.

SIDELIGHTS:

A former Catholic priest and master of Balliol College at Oxford University, Anthony Kenny writes on a variety of philosophical topics, from discussions of current political and public policy issues to assessments of various philosophical thinkers of the past. Wyclif, a study of the fourteenth-century English religious reformer and former master of Balliol whose radical doctrines on the Christian Church inspired numerous heresies, "has helped to bring greater justice to one of [Kenny's] … most influential and, later, turbulent predecessors," wrote Gordon Leff in the Times Literary Supplement, "as well as to redirect attention to too-long neglected matters." Regarding The Legacy of Wittgenstein, an evaluation of the controversial twentieth-century master of linguistic analysis, G.P. Baker remarked in the Times Literary Supplement that Kenny "develops a persuasive case for viewing Wittgenstein as the most important philosopher of the twentieth century [and] … shows that Wittgenstein's ideas have the power to flatten some of the houses of cards that clutter up the landscape in linguistics, psychology, and neurophysiology."

Kenny has written on public policy issues such as nuclear deterrence in both The Logic of Deterrence and The Ivory Tower: Essays in Philosophy and Public Policy. In doing so, he has integrated aspects of his religious training while maintaining a distinct intellectual independence, according to some reviewers. John Keegan noted in the Times Literary Supplement that The Logic of Deterrence "concerns, in the best tradition of Catholic moral philosophy, an acutely immediate issue, [and] is deeply informed by traditional Catholic thinking, but juxtaposes Christian and humanist values in a way that exactly reflects [Kenny's] … own intellectual evolution." Kenny's A Path from Rome: An Autobiography chronicles this evolution, explaining how he "migrated from the life of a Catholic parish priest to that of an Oxford philosophy don, shedding his religious beliefs in the process while retaining the moral preoccupations that had originally drawn him into the priestly life," added Keegan. "This he does with transparent frankness and humility," remarked A.N. Wilson in the Times Literary Supplement. without "the slightest whiff of intellectual superiority in his descriptions of his former teachers and colleagues at the various seminaries he attended."

Kenny is also the author of The Computation of Style: An Introduction to Statistics for Students of Literature and Humanities, which covers the field of stylometry, or using statistics to make judgments on literary style. A.Q. Morton noted in the Times Literary Supplement that Kenny's introductory book "is the best … available on this subject at this level."

As the Warden of Rhodes House from 1989 to 1999, Kenny has had considerable direct experience with the educational trust established by Cecil Rhodes that brought into being the noted Rhodes Scholars familiar on campuses around the world. In The History of the Rhodes Trust, 1902-1999, Kenny assembled a detailed history of the Trust as explicated by eight scholars, five of whom were previous Rhodes Scholars. "Kenny himself has written an introduction on the Trust and its administration, an afterword in which he summarizes with brilliant economy its success and failures, and a chapter on ‘the smaller constituencies’ (i.e. those which have elected only a single scholar annually during all or some of their history)," noted A.H. Halsey in English Historical Review. The contributors outline the life of Cecil Rhodes and how he made a fortune in South Africa and in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and how that fortune was made through blatant exploitation of native Africans. Some good did come out of Rhodes's actions, however, with the establishment of the Rhodes Trust and the thousands of prestigious scholarships that came with it. The contributors focus their writings on these scholarships, and offer additional information about the Rhodes Trust, particularly the contributions it makes to causes within the Oxford University. Other contributors provide some startling background on Rhodes and his motivations. David Alexander explains how Rhodes felt that British political errors cost them the colonies that became the United States, and that the concentration of Rhodes scholarships in America was part of an attempt to help the British Empire regain the United States. Halsey called the story told by Kenny and his contributors "fascinating."

In Aquinas on Being, Kenny argues that Aquinas's writings on being are not consistent and do not form a cohesive body of work; therefore, Kenny suggests, they should not be considered as influential and important as they have been. Kenny also explores the impact his thesis would have on other of Aquinas's important writings and philosophies. The author presents his arguments and issues "in an unsurprisingly clear and persuasive manner," noted reviewer Benjamin Gordon- Taylor in Medium Aevum.

With The Unknown God: Agnostic Essays, Kenny offers a collection of essays spanning fifteen years that articulate a number of simple but profound questions about human interaction with the divine. For example, Kenny wonders if it is possible for humans to prove the existence of God, if such efforts are simply ineffectual attempts to anthropomorphize a force that humans cannot comprehend in its raw form, and if limited literal descriptions of God can have the desired effect of helping humans commune with the supreme being. For Kenny, the correct position on God is agnosticism, which he defines not as a type of scornful, unexamined disbelief in God but as a disbelief based on the fact that the truth of the statement "God exists" has not been proven. Kenny presents agnosticism "not as an indecisive idea but as a deeply philosophical belief system that combines rationality and humility," observed Scott Duimstra in Library Journal.

A New History of Western Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy is an in-depth examination of the status and development of philosophy during medieval times. Covering a time period bracketed by St. Augustine of Hippo and the Renaissance, the book offers a historical survey of medieval philosophy as well as detailed examination of seven important themes common in the philosophy of the period: logic and language; knowledge; physics; metaphysics; mind and soul; ethics; and the nature of God. He concedes the difficulties in the esoteric and scholarly nature of medieval philosophy, while also showing how medieval philosophers drew heavily upon the work that went before them in establishing their ideas. For Kenny, there is still considerable value in the work of the great medieval philosophers. A Contemporary Review contributor called the book "a valuable addition to existing histories of European philosophy."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Kenny, Anthony, A Path from Rome: An Autobiography, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1986.

PERIODICALS

Contemporary Review, September, 2001, review of The History of the Rhodes Trust, 1902-1999, p. 192; December, 2005, review of A New History of Western Philosophy: Medieval Philosophy, p. 380.

English Historical Review, April, 2002, A.H. Halsey, review of The History of the Rhodes Trust, p. 508.

Journal of Religion, January, 1998, David B. Burrell, review of Aquinas on Mind, p. 138.

Library Journal, August 1, 2005, Scott Duimstra, review of The Unknown God, p. 91.

Medium Aevum, fall, 2003, Benjamin Gordon-Taylor, review of Aquinas on Being, p. 371.

Reference & Research Book News, November, 2005, review of The Unknown God.

Religious Studies, March, 2005, Richard M. Thomson Thomson Gale, review of The Unknown God, p. 107.

Spectator, November 12, 2005, Rupert Christiansen, review of Arthur Hugh Clough: A Poet's Life, p. 56.

Times Literary Supplement, January 25, 1980, Stephen Clark, review of The God of the Philosophers, p. 82; May 9, 1980, C.H. Sisson, review of Aquinas, p. 531; November 26, 1982, A.Q. Morton, review of The Computation of Style, p. 1290; June 14, 1985, A.N. Wilson, review of A Path from Rome, p. 662; July 5, 1985, G.P. Baker, review of The Legacy of Wittgenstein, p. 854; August 9, 1985, Gordon Leff, review of Wyclif, p. 885; November 15, 1985, John Keegan, review of The Logic of Deterrence, p. 1286; February 7, 1986, Jeremy Waldron, review of The Ivory Tower, p. 148.