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ABSTRACT
In this paper, I recount the history of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies (IJPS), and my role as Founding Editor. The IJPS emerged from the earlier annual Philosophical Studies (Maynooth), founded by Desmond Bastable in 1951 and published regularly until 1988. I took over as Editor from 1989 to 1992 and then began the International Journal of Philosophical Studies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. ‘Establishing a tradition mean forgetting its origins, the aging Husserl used to say. Precisely because we owe so much to tradition we are in no position to see just what belongs to it.’ Merleau-Ponty (Citation1964).
2. See The Philosophy Documentation Center E-Collection, https://www.pdcnet.org/collection-anonymous/browse?fp=philstudies.
3. See Declan O’Keefe (Citation2011).
4. See, for instance, Fintan O’Toole (Citation2023). On the censorship of books (that included notable authors such as Edna O’Brien) during the fifties and sixties, see Peter Martin (Citation2006).
5. St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, was founded in 1795 as a seminary for the education of Catholic priests, and by 1850 had become the largest seminary in the world. In 1896 it became a Pontifical University and in 1910 a Recognised College of the National University of Ireland (NUI) that enabled its clerical students to receive degrees from the National University of Ireland (whose three constituent colleges were University College Dublin, University College Cork and University College Galway). In 1997 Maynooth became an independent university.
6. Fr. Patrick K. Bastable taught Logic in the Department of Logic and Psychology at UCD and eventually joined the Philosophy Department. With his brother, he also studied for the priesthood at Holy Cross College, in Clonliffe (1935–1938), and University College Dublin (1938–1939). Patrick entered the Missionary Society of Saint Columban, at Dalgan Park in 1939 and was ordained on December 21, 1943. He lectured at UCD from 1960 to 1980. He is buried in the St. Columban Cemetery in Navan County Meath. He published a logic textbook (Bastable Citation1975), which was reviewed not unfavorably in The Journal of Symbolic Logic by G. T. Kneebone (Citation1976) and by Bartlett (Citation1977) in The Modern Schoolman. In later life he worked on editing the letters of St. Patrick by Daniel Conneely, his fellow Columban.
7. James Desmond Bastable retired in 1977 and in 1988 was made chaplain to St. Clare’s Convent, Stillorgan where he remained until 1996. He died on 9 August 2000 and is buried in the cemetery in St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth.
8. Dermot Moran (Citation1990).
9. Masterson (Citation1965). Patrick Masterson (b. 1936) was Professor of Metaphysics at University College Dublin and later Registrar and then President of University College Dublin, before becoming President of the European University Institute in Florence. He was a member of the Editorial Board of Philosophical Studies and very supportive of both Philosophical Studies and the IJPS while at UCD.
10. Pettit (Citation1968). Philip Pettit (b. 1945) is an Irish philosopher, educated at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth, and Queen’s University of Belfast, and currently Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
11. Ernan McMullin (Citation1952, Citation1953) reviewed a book on cosmology by Fernand Renoirte and a book by Werner Heisenberg on the philosophical problems of nuclear science. One of the distinguishing features of Philosophical Studies is that it carried these more extensive Critical Notices. This tradition of Critical Notices has been continued in the IJPS. Ernan McMullin (Citation1924-2011) was an Irish philosopher and Catholic priest who was later Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He studied physics at the National University of Ireland under the Nobel laureate Erwin Schroedinger and theology at Maynooth College before being ordained a priest in 1949 and receiving his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Louvain in 1954. He was a renowned expert on philosophy of science.
12. Cyril Barrett (1925-2003) was an Irish Jesuit priest who taught aesthetics and philosophy at the University of Warwick and later resided at Campion Hall, Oxford.
13. Desmond (Citation1975). William Desmond (b. 1951) is an Irish philosopher, who was educated at University College Dublin and Penn State University and is Professor Emeritus from K. U. Leuven and a Professor at Villanova University. He is a former President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, the Hegel Society of America, and The Metaphysical Society of America.
14. Peter McCormick is Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a Permanent Member of the Institute international de philosophie in Paris. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa, and Fürst Franz-Josef and Fürstin Gina Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy of the Internationale Akademie für Philosophie im Fürstentum, Liechtenstein.
15. E.g. Patrick A. Heelan (Citation1970).
16. See Nielsen (Citation1984).
17. Boleslaw Sobocinski (Citation1956). One of IJPS former editors, Maria Baghramian, was instrumental in bringing renewed attention to Lukasiewicz’s contribution to logic with a conference on Lukasiewicz in Dublin held at University College Dublin, 7–10 July 1996. See The Life and Career of Professor Jan Lukasiewicz. Polish Genius of Logic, Philosopher and Post-War Refugee in Ireland published by The Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Dublin, 2022.
18. See, for instance, Tom Garvin (Citation1998).
19. See, for instance, Iglesias (Citation1981).
20. See Paschal O’Gorman (Citation1984).
21. Among the eminent clerical contributors were: Cathal Daly (Citation1917-2009), who became Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland, Desmond Connell (1926-2017), who became Archbishop of Dublin and Primate of Ireland and later became Cardinal; Monsignor John Horgan, who was Professor of Metaphysics at University College Dublin, from 1942–71; and Professor Eamonn Feighin O’Doherty (1918–98), who became Professor of Logic and Psychology at University College Dublin and Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology (1971–80).
22. For many years, Trinity College philosophy tended to look more to the United Kingdom and its philosophers participated with those from Ulster in the Philosophical Club, where the Irish Philosophical Society tended to represent philosophers from the National University of Ireland colleges and the Department of Scholastic Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast. These divisions slowly disappeared during the Seventies and Eighties. Professor William Lyons in Trinity College was particularly active in promoting intercourse between Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin in the Nineties.
23. Maria Baghramian (Citation1990) also published in Philosophical Studies.
24. Philip Pettit published in Philosophical Studies both early and late. See Pettit (Citation1991/1992). He gave me invaluable advice as Editor of IJPS.
25. Onora O’Neill was born in Aughafatten, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, in 1941, and comes from a distinguished Northern Irish political family. She was originally at the University of Essex when she joined the Editorial Board but shortly after became Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge (1992–2006), and then President of the British Academy (2005–2009). She chaired the Nuffield Foundation from 1998–2010, and, as Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve, has been a crossbench member of the House of Lords since 2000. In 2017, she was awarded the Holberg Prize and the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture.
26. See Moran (Citation1993).
27. See, for instance, O’Shea and McDowell (Citation2023).
28. Rowland Stout has been very active both as Editor and as contributor in the journal, see, for example, Stout (Citation2019, Citation2022).
29. The Papazian Annual Essay Prize on Themes from Ethics and Political Philosophy was established in 2012 in memory of Robert Papazian, a young political activist who was executed in Iran in 1982. The annual prize is sponsored by the Papazian family. The winning article is published in the IJPS.
30. Thom Brooks (Durham University) went on the become Founding editor (2003–2012) of the Journal of Moral Philosophy (Brill) and a member of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Criminal Law (Sage).