Origins
The first university philosophy department was founded at the University of Otago in 1871, the year teaching began there. Otago’s first three philosophy professors devoted their time to teaching rather than research.
The fourth professor, South African John Findlay, who arrived at Otago in 1932, was the first to gain international recognition for his research when he published Meinong’s theory of objects, an exploration of Austrian philosopher Alexius Meinong’s work on objects and different states of existence. He was also noted for his teaching of mathematical logic.
Philosophy was more tentatively established at the other three foundation university colleges, Canterbury, Auckland and Victoria (in Wellington). None established philosophy departments for some time and if philosophy was taught, it was by a single lecturer or professor who also had teaching responsibilities in other areas.
Orator
Otago’s first professor of mental and moral philosophy, Scotsman Duncan Macgregor, was a fiery character who was more interested in debate than textbook learning. A former pupil, Attorney-General John Findlay, described his approach: ‘The atmosphere of his classroom was unlike that of any classroom I was ever in. It was charged with an electricity that emanated from the man himself … when, with flushed face and flashing eye, he raised his voice to its full pitch in denouncing the shame of the world … in exhorting the pursuit of truth at all costs, his class used to sit as if transfixed.’1
Karl Popper
In 1937 Austrian philosopher Karl Popper took up a philosophy lectureship at Canterbury University College. He raised the profile of philosophy in New Zealand during his eight years in the country.
Popper had made his mark in the philosophical world with the 1934 publication of Logik der Forschung (translated into English as The logic of scientific discovery). He wrote his best-known philosophical work, The open society and its enemies (1945), while at Canterbury. Students filled his lecture theatres, attracted by the quality of his teaching, and he also gave lectures for the Workers’ Educational Association. He left Canterbury for the London School of Economics in 1945.
Plato and lipstick
Dennis Grey, a philosophy lecturer at the University of Otago after the Second World War, was known for his mesmerising lectures on ancient Greek philosopher Plato, but also for wearing lipstick in class – which had some shock value in post-war Dunedin.
Arthur Prior
New Zealander Arthur Prior replaced Karl Popper as philosophy lecturer at Canterbury University College in 1946. He became the first professor of philosophy at Canterbury in 1953 and left New Zealand permanently in 1958.
Prior was interested in formal logic, and in particular modal logic, which is concerned with applying qualifiers to logical propositions (‘it is necessary that…’ or ‘it is possible that…’). He developed the idea that time references are qualifiers and that the truth of propositions can change as time passes. Prior called this ‘tense logic’ and his invention made him an internationally renowned philosopher.
Tense (also known as temporal) logic has been applied to computer science and artificial intelligence because it can be used to create rules for handling time-dependent data.
Other university developments
During his time at Canterbury, Arthur Prior modernised the department’s philosophy programme by separating psychology from philosophy. This was a worldwide movement. Psychology – previously called ‘mental philosophy’ – had evolved into a separate discipline, and it was no longer appropriate to teach the two from the same department.
At Victoria University College philosophy became a stand-alone department in 1952, and the logician George Hughes was appointed professor. Under Hughes, Victoria’s philosophy department became well known for research in logic. New Zealander Max Cresswell joined the department in 1963 and became its foremost logician. Australian Kim Sterelny taught at Victoria between 1988 and 2008 and gained recognition as a philosopher of biology.
Philosophy at Auckland was revitalised after 1955, when lecturer Richard Anschutz became professor and employed more lecturing staff. In the mid-1960s the department’s focus shifted to issues in contemporary philosophy, and research output significantly increased in the 1980s.
Otago retained the vitality and research output established by John Findlay in the 1930s. Noted Australian philosopher John Passmore was head of department from 1950 until 1955, when he was succeeded by fellow Australian and brilliant ethical philosopher J. L. Mackie. Englishman Alan Musgrave, a leader in epistemology (theory of knowledge) and philosophy of science, was head of department from 1970 to 2005.
Philosophy was first offered at the University of Waikato (which opened in 1964) in 1966, and at Massey University in 1969. Philosophy was taught at Lincoln University from 1994. Lincoln did not have a separate philosophy department – philosophy papers were taught as part of a social science degree.
Research ratings
University philosophy departments have scored well under the government’s Performance-Based Research Fund evaluation process, which ties research performance to tertiary education funding. In the first two evaluations, philosophy was the highest-ranked out of 41 (in 2003) and 42 (2006) subjects.
In 2012 it slipped to fourth highest out of 42 subjects. However, philosophy’s quality score – the standard measure of research quality used to rank subjects – rose between 2003 and 2012, meaning that the quality of philosophical research improved over this period.
