A. C. Grayling

A. C. Grayling
At the 2011 Edinburgh International Book Festival
Master of the New College of the Humanities
Incumbent
Assumed office 2011
Personal details
Born	Anthony Clifford Grayling (1949-04-03) 3 April 1949 Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia
Nationality	British
Spouse	Katie Hickman
Children	One son, two daughters
Residence	London, England
Education	BA (Sussex), BA (London), MA (Sussex), DPhil (Oxon)
Alma mater	University of Sussex University of London external programme Magdalen College, Oxford
Occupation	Philosopher
Signature
Website	www.acgrayling.com

Anthony Clifford "A. C." Grayling (/ˈɡreɪlɪŋ/; born 3 April 1949) is a British philosopher. In 2011 he founded and became the first Master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. Until June 2011, he was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck, University of London, where he taught from 1991. He is also a supernumerary fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford.

Grayling is the author of about 30 books on philosophy, including The Refutation of Scepticism (1985), The Future of Moral Values (1997), The Meaning of Things (2001), The Good Book (2011), and The God Argument (2013). He is a Trustee of the London Library, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

He is a director and contributor at Prospect Magazine, as well as a Vice President of the British Humanist Association. His main academic interests lie in epistemology, metaphysics and philosophical logic. He has described himself as "a man of the left" and is associated in Britain with the new atheism movement, and is sometimes described as the 'Fifth Horseman of New Atheism'. He appears in the British media discussing philosophy.

Early life and education

Grayling was born and raised in Luanshya, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), within the British expatriate community, while his father worked for the Standard Chartered Bank. He attended several boarding schools, including Falcon College in Southern Rhodesia, from which he ran away after being caned. His first exposure to philosophical writing was at the age of twelve, when he found an English translation of the Charmides, one of Plato's dialogues, in a local library. At age fourteen, he read G. H. Lewes's Biographical History of Philosophy (1846), which confirmed his ambition to study philosophy; he said it "superinduced order on the random reading that had preceded it, and settled my vocation."

Grayling was the third sibling. When he was 19 years old, his elder sister Jennifer was murdered in Johannesburg. She had been born with brain damage, and after brain surgery to alleviate it at the age of 20 had experienced personality problems that led to several inappropriate affairs and a premature marriage. She was found dead in a river shortly after the marriage; she had been stabbed. When her parents went to identify her, her mother—already ill—had a heart attack and died. Grayling said he dealt with his grief by becoming a workaholic.

After moving to England in his teens, he spent three years at the University of Sussex, but said that although he applauded their intention to educate generalists, he wished to be a scholar, so in addition to his BA from Sussex, he also completed one in philosophy as a University of London external student. He went on to obtain an MA from Sussex, then attended Magdalen College, Oxford, where he was taught by P. F. Strawson and A. J. Ayer, obtaining his doctorate in 1981 for a thesis on "Epistemological Scepticism and Transcendental Arguments."

Career

Grayling lectured in philosophy at St Anne's College, Oxford, before taking up a post in 1991 at Birkbeck, University of London, where in 1998 he became reader in philosophy, and in 2005 professor. He resigned from Birkbeck in June 2011 to found and become the first master of New College of the Humanities, an independent undergraduate college in London. He is a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. Grayling is Chair of the Judges for the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

Public advocacy

For Grayling, work on technical problems is only one aspect of philosophy. Another aspect, one which has been at the centre of philosophy's place in history, has more immediate application to daily life: the questions of ethics, which revolve upon what Grayling calls the great Socratic question, 'How should one live?'. In pursuit of what he describes as 'contributing to the conversation society has with itself about possibilities for good lives in good societies.' Grayling writes widely on contemporary issues, including war crimes, the legalisation of drugs, euthanasia, secularism, and human rights. He has articulated positions on humanist ethics and on the history and nature of concepts of liberty as applied in civic life. In support of his belief that the philosopher should engage in public debate, he brings these philosophical perspectives to issues of the day in his work as a writer and as a commentator on radio and television.

Among his contributions to the discussion about religion in contemporary society he argues that there are three separable, though naturally connected debates:

(a) a metaphysical debate about what the universe contains; denying that it contains supernatural agencies of any kind makes him an atheist;

(b) a debate about the basis of ethics; taking the world to be a natural realm of natural law requires that humanity thinks for itself about the right and the good, based on our best understanding of human nature and the human condition; this makes him a humanist;

(c) a debate about the place of religious movements and organisations in the public domain; as a secularist Grayling argues that these should see themselves as civil society organisations on a par with trade unions and other NGOs, with every right to exist and to have their say, but no greater right than any other self-constituted, self-selected interest group

On this last point, Grayling's view is that for historical reasons religions have a grossly inflated place in the public domain out of all proportion to the numbers of their adherents or their intrinsic merits, so that their voice and influence is amplified disproportionately: with the result that they can distort such matters as public policy (e.g. on abortion) and science research and education (e.g. stem cells, teaching of evolution). He argues that winning the metaphysical and ethical debates is already abating the problems associated with (c) in more advanced Western societies, even the US. He sees his own major contribution as being the promotion of understanding of humanist ethics deriving from the philosophical tradition.

Between 1999 and 2002 Grayling wrote a weekly column in The Guardian called "The Last Word", in which he turned his attention to a different topic every week. In these columns, which also formed the basis of a series of books for a general readership, commencing with The Meaning of Things in 2001, Grayling made the basics of philosophy available to the layperson. He is a regular contributor to The Guardian's "Comment is free" group blog, and writes columns for, among others, the Prospect and New Scientist magazines.

Grayling is accredited with the United Nations Human Rights Council, and is a patron of the British Humanist Association, an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society, patron of the British Armed Forces Humanist Association and trustee of the London Library. He was a board member of the Society of Authors. In 2003 he was a Booker Prize judge. In 2005, Grayling debated with Christian philosopher William Lane Craig on whether God can exist in an evil world.

Grayling's book on the allied strategic air offensive in World War II, Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? (2006) was well-received as a contribution to the debate on the ethics of war. In September 2010, Grayling was one of 55 public figures who sent a letter to The Guardian expressing their opposition to Pope Benedict XVI's state visit to the UK. In August 2014, Grayling was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue.

Personal life

Grayling lives in Peckham with his wife, novelist Katie Hickman. They have a daughter, Madeleine, and a stepson, Luke, who both attend boarding schools. Grayling also has two adult children from his first marriage.

Positions held

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
• Fellow of the World Economic Forum (2000–2004)
• Member of the editorial boards of Reason in Practice and Prospect
• British Academy visitor to the Institute of Philosophy at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (1986)
• Director of the Sino-British Summer School in Philosophy in Beijing (1988, 1993)
• Jan Hus Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Philosophy at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic (1994 and 1996)
• Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship (1998)
• Honorary Secretary of the Aristotelian Society (1993–2001)
• Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow (2005)
• Past chairman of June Fourth, a human rights group concerned with China
• Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society
• Patron of the British Armed Forces Humanist Association UK Armed Forces Humanist Association (UKAFHA)
• Representative to the UN Human Rights Council for the International Humanist and Ethical Union
• Vice-president, British Humanist Association. In June 2011, it was announced that he had decided not to take up the position of President of the BHA.
• Member of the C1 World Dialogue group on relations between Islam and the West

Publications

• An Introduction to Philosophical Logic (1982). ISBN 0-389-20299-1
• The Refutation of Scepticism (1985). ISBN 0-7156-1922-5
• Berkeley: The Central Arguments (1986). ISBN 0-7156-2065-7
• Wittgenstein (1988). ISBN 0-19-287676-7
• with Susan Whitfield. China: A Literary Companion (1994). ISBN 0-7195-5353-9
• (ed). Philosophy: A Guide Through the Subject (1995). ISBN 0-19-875156-7
• Russell (1996). ISBN 0-19-287683-X
• The Future of Moral Values (1997), ISBN 0-297-81973-9
• Philosophy 2: Further Through the Subject (1998). ISBN 0-19-875179-6, ed.
• The Quarrel of the Age: The Life and Times of William Hazlitt (2000). ISBN 0-297-64322-3
• The Meaning of Things: Applying Philosophy to Life (2001). ISBN 0-297-60758-8
  • published in the U.S. as Meditations for the Humanist: Ethics for a Secular Age.
• The Reason of Things: Living with Philosophy (2002). ISBN 0-297-82935-1
  • published in the U.S. as Life, Sex, and Ideas: The Good Life Without God.
• What Is Good?: The Search for the Best Way to Live (2003). ISBN 0-297-84132-7
• The Mystery of Things (2004). ISBN 0-297-64559-5
• The Art of Always Being Right (2004). ISBN 1-903933-61-7 [Edited T. Bailey Saunders' translation of Schopenhauer's essay The Art of Being Right]
• Descartes: The Life of René Descartes and Its Place in His Times (2005). ISBN 0-7432-3147-3
• The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century (2005). ISBN 0-297-84819-4
• The Form of Things: Essays on Life, Ideas and Liberty in the 21st Century (2006). ISBN 0-297-85167-5
• with Andrew Pyle and Naomi Goulder (eds). The Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy (2006), ISBN 1-84371-141-9
• Among the Dead Cities: Was the Allied Bombing of Civilians in WWII a Necessity or a Crime? (2006). ISBN 0-7475-7671-8
• with Mick Gordon. On Religion (2007).
• Against All Gods: Six Polemics on Religion and an Essay on Kindness (2007). ISBN 978-1-84002-728-0
• Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought (2007). ISBN 978-0-8264-9748-2
• Towards The Light (2007). ISBN 978-0-8027-1636-1
  • published in the U.S. as Towards the Light of Liberty.
• The Choice of Hercules (2007).
• Scepticism and the Possibility of Knowledge (2008).
• Ideas That Matter: A Personal Guide for the 21st Century (2009). ISBN 978-0-297-85676-4
• Liberty in the Age of Terror : A Defence of Civil Society and Enlightenment Values (2009).
• To Set Prometheus Free: Essays on Religion, Reason and Humanity (2009). ISBN 978-1-84002-962-8
• Thinking of Answers: Questions in the Philosophy of Everyday Life (2010). ISBN 978-1-4088-0598-5
• The Good Book (2011). ISBN 978-0-8027-1737-5
• The God Argument (2013). ISBN 978-1-62040-190-3
• The Challenge of Things: Thinking Through Troubled Times (2015). ISBN 978-1-4088-6461-6

Further reading

• A. C. Grayling website
• Blog in the Guardian
• Schwarz, Benjamin. "Fire From the Sky: What not to read this month", Atlantic Monthly, 30 May 2006. review of Grayling's Among the Dead Cities.
• Smoler, Fredric. "Was the American Bombing Campaign in World War II a War Crime?", American Heritage, 6 April 2006; review of Among the Dead Cities.
• "Five Minutes with AC Grayling", BBC..
• "Interview with Grayling", The Science Network.
• "Interview with Grayling", ABC Radio National, 20 February 2008.
• TDF Interview about Grace as co-dramatist
• "Mindfields by A. C. Grayling", New Scientist.
• Intelligence Squared Debate - Atheism is the new fundamentalism
• "Grayling in conversation", BBC World Service (audio).
• "Grayling speaking on human flourishing", The Science Network (video)