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Obituary

Antony Flew (1923-2010)

by Piers Benn

Antony Garrard Newton Flew was an analytical philosopher whose formative years were influenced by the ‘linguistic philosophy’ prevalent in English-speaking philosophy in the 1950s and 1960s. He was educated at Kingswood School, Bath and St John’s College Oxford. He taught briefly at Christ Church Oxford, and later was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Keele, and finally at Reading. His work was influenced by his early teachers, in particular Gilbert Ryle. Flew’s own work continued to be informed by Ryle’s approach, though his main intellectual mentor was David Hume (1711-1776), whom he followed both in his critique of natural theology and also, to some extent, his political sympathies.

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