The British Institute of Philosophy

Abstract

ON April 6 of this yeartjtf British Institute of Philosophy (University Hall, 14 Gordon Square, London, W.CO)completed the first twenty-one years of its existence. The occasion was marked by a letter to The Times from Lord Samuel, president, Sir David Ross chairman, and Lord Lindsay, vice-chairman of the Institute. A leading article in the same issue, “The Sovereign Mind”, dealing with the work of the Institute, stressed the need for the pursuit of abstract truth and the scrutiny of ideas offered to the people as springs of action. Founded “to serve as a link between philosophers and the everyday world”, the Institute has fulfilled this aim in many ways. It has organised courses of philosophical lectures as well as popular addresses in London. It has founded branches in Bangor, Cardiff, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Durham, and Sheffield under the auspices of the Universities in those centres, and usually under the direct guidance of the head or some member of their departments of philosophy giving his services free. Its journal Philosophy, which ranks with professional journals in philosophy and draws contributions from the leading philosophers in Britain, has performed the feat of compelling philosophers to write so as to be understood by laymen, and has achieved as a result the unique distinction of being read with enjoyment and profit by laymen and philosophers alike. All this has been done with a membership of only a little more than a thousand.