Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog

News and views about philosophy, the academic profession, academic freedom, intellectual culture, and other topics. The world’s most popular philosophy blog, since 2003.

  1. AG Tanyi's avatar

    Then my question is how many of ordinary mathematicians also qualify as artists of their profession…

  2. John Rapko's avatar
  3. Mark's avatar
  4. David Reidy's avatar
  5. Paul Canis's avatar
  6. Rachel Laudan's avatar
  7. Rollo Burgess's avatar

In Memoriam: Alan Montefiore (1926-2024)

Brian Leiter

An emeritus Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford, Professor Montefiore was one of the early Anglophone analytic philosophers to take a serious interest in post-Kantian German and French philosophy.  Among his other contributions, he was one of the co-founders and editors of the Cambridge University Press "Modern European Philosophy" series which published many important books in the 1980s and early 1990s.  Comments are open for remembrances from those who knew Professor Montefiore or for those who wish to comment on the significance of his work.

(Thanks to Matt Kramer for the information.)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

15 responses to “In Memoriam: Alan Montefiore (1926-2024)”

  1. Mark Glouberman

    I met Alan Montefiore when I first arrived at Balliol, in 1966. As a reader of his 1958 'A Modern Introduction to Moral Philosophy' might sense, he was not entirely comfortable with the style of moral philosophy that was rising then to prominence (Hare & Co.)

    Arthur Prior was also at Balliol in the late '60s. We students had a joke about the style of argument favored by these dons. Arthur's was, of course the timely a priori mode; Alan's, the flowery a montefiore one.

    I did not get to know Montefiore well. Soft-spoken (indeed, hard to hear), he was however most pleasant in our few exchanges.

    May his memory be for a blessing.

    Reply
  2. Jonathan Birch

    Alan founded the Forum for European Philosophy, a charity that ran public events at the LSE for 25 years. You can find an archive of recordings, spanning 2008 to 2022, on the LSE website (https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/theforum/topics/listen/).

    Reply
  3. Michael Sevel

    His book Neutrality and Impartiality: The University and Political Commitment (CUP, 1975) is still quite interesting, and one for our times.

    He was also an early advocate of value pluralism in Oxford in the post-war period, alongside Berlin, Hampshire, Williams, Taylor, and Raz, among others.

    Reply
  4. Anonymous

    As I was a penniless Balliol undergraduate without enough money for food, Alan used to schedule our tutorials in his apartment at dinner hour, so he could cook for me. Thank you, Alan.

    Reply
  5. Claire Mankowitz

    I'm one of Alan's daughters, and just want to thank you for taking the time to share that memory. His values will live on! Claire

    Reply
  6. Adam Hodgkin

    I was not in Balliol but I was interested in radical French philosophy and heard that Montefiore had invited Jacques Derrida to give a seminar in a Balliol basement in 1969 or 1970? I found the seminar very puzzling and hard to grasp. Derrida seemed to be attaching a great deal of weight to the supplement de la supplement and la différence de la différance. I got very little from it. But was impressed that one of the Balliol philosophers was taking a broad view of the subject. Derrida seems considerably more interesting now Adam

    Reply
  7. Mark Glouberman

    I attended the Derrida lecture, and remember well the business about the supplement. Jonathan Cohen (of Queen's) was, as I recall, singularly unimpressed.

    The lecture was not delivered in what the visitor would have regarded as a donjon. The location was an upper storey room, sunlit on that day, in or near the Master's Lodgings.

    Reply
  8. Adam Hodgkin

    I guess there may have been several lectures and seminars. Peeters’ biography mentions two visits to Balliol in February and May 1970 and has a nice quotation from Montefiore. “…for my students, and even for me, Derrida’s works were still very difficult to get a handle on. I’d asked him to let those taking part in these encounters speak before he did, so they could ask him about what they didn’t understand. In discussions of this kind, he was remarkably clear. “

    Reply
  9. Graham wood

    I took a Kant paper with Alan at Balliol. I was hopeless, but he was very generous and we kept in touch from time to time. A very decent and human man. He was also responsible for me taking up smoking a pipe for a year or so when I through that is what philosophers do.

    Reply
  10. Paul Johnston

    I was at Balliol in the 1980s and had the pleasure of being in Alan's Kant classes which always had a very special status. Alan was really good to me and gave me lots of support to become an academic even though my philosophical views were not the same as his (and even though that it not ultimately the path I took). What I remember most about him – apart from his love of Kant – was his gentleness, patience and kindness. He was a true gentleman and scholar!

    Reply
  11. Paul Johnston

    Hi Graham. I did not know it was Alan who was responsible for you taking up a pipe. I hope all is well with you. Best Regards, Paul

    Reply
  12. Jeremy Mynott

    I worked with Alan for years as his CUP editor. I particularly appreciated the role Alan played as a 'philosophical listener’, intrigued by the conversations and disagreements of others. I remember one exchange we had along these lines. We were considering some new project for his 'Modern European Philosophy' series, which was supposed to illustrate fruitful exchanges between different philosophical traditions. I said, ‘We can't publish this because X doesn’t seem to be engaging at all with Y’. To which Alan replied, ‘Yes, but isn’t that interesting’. I kept in touch with him as a friend ever since we both retired (decades ago) and he never ceased to be interested and interesting.

    Reply
  13. Nigel Patrick THOMAS

    I have only pleasant memories of Alan. As a philosopher he was outstanding, as a tutor he was enabling, encouraging and stimulating. As a person never judgemental, always interested.

    One memory is of being in a tutorial in his room on the corner of Broad, during the second Clarendon occupation. Peter Hutchinson was my fellow student, and we were both active participants – I in fact was up before the proctors afterwards. A lot of noise drew us to the window and we saw that Ruskin were marching to join the occupation. Alan merely said drily "I suppose you'd better go then" and off we went.

    Another tutorial memory is of Alan saying, "Excuse me, I just need to think in Chinese for a moment."

    Alan and I were members of the joint JCR/College Executive coeducation committee (third member Chris Dunabin). Our work bore fruit some time after Chris and I went down.

    I well remember 'A Priori and A Montefiore'. Ironic that Arthur (another lovely man) passed away very priorly, while Alan remained with us almost to posterity.

    Reply
  14. Richard Parker

    I came to Balliol in 1962. On one occasion I arrived for a tutorial without an essay. I had to confess that I'd intended to write it overnight but had fallen asleep at my desk, waking too late to do anything. Alan admitted that this could happen easily, and suggested I went to Boswell's shop to buy a Smith's cooking timer. If I felt myself nodding off, he said, set it for an hour and wake up refreshed to carry on working. I did – and it worked. Such a kind man.

    Reply
  15. steven lukes

    Alan was my teacher, colleague for two decades and friend for life. If I had to choose one word to characterize him it would be ‘complexity.’ He responded to it and endlessly sought it out, but always to reach clarity, never obscurity. Complexity in people, as a teacher and colleague, and in ideas, as a philosopher. His approach was the polar opposite of the cut-and-thrust mode of philosophical debate, long prevalent in Oxford. With students it was a drawing out from hidden depths, with colleagues subtle persuasion, and in philosophy it was undoing simplistic oppositions, such as fact and value, and analytic versus continental philosophy. One key lesson he taught me was the Socratic one that sometimes it is better for a dispute to continue than for either side to prevail, because of the sheer difficulty of reaching a convincing conclusion.

    —–
    KEYWORDS:
    Primary Blog

    Reply

Designed with WordPress