Flew, Antony G(arrard) N(ewton)
(1923 )
British author, humanist, and professor of philosophy who
has written widely on parapsychological subjects. Flew was born
February 11, 1923, in London. He became a lecturer at Christ
Church College, Oxford, England, and at the University of Aberdeen,
Scotland. In 1954 he became a professor of philosophy
at the University of Keele, Staffordshire, England. He was a distinguished
research fellow at the Social Philosophy and Policy
Center, Bowling Green State University; a professor emeritus
of the University of Reading, in England; and a visiting teacher
and lecturer at several universities around the world. Flew is a
humanist-rationalist and is known internationally as a skeptic
regarding paranormal claims. Over the years he has contributed
many articles on philosophy and parapsychology, especially
on issues of personal survival, to various journals, including
the Cambridge Journal, the British Journal of Sociology, the Philosophical
Quarterly, New Biology, and the Rationalist Annual, and
contributed articles for several anthologies.
His many books include A New Approach to Psychical Research
(1953), his main text touching on the paranormal; Humes Philosophy
of Belief (1961); God and Philosophy (1966); Evolutionary
Ethics (1967); An Introduction to Western Philosophy (1971); Crime
or Disease? (1973); Thinking About Thinking (1975; reissued as
Thinking Straight, 1977); The Presumption of Atheism (1976); Sociology,
Equality, and Education (1976); The Warren-Flew Debate
(1977); A Rational Animal (1978); Philosophy: An Introduction
(1979); The Politics of Procrustes (1981); and The Logic of Mortality
(1987). He also edited the 1964 book Body, Mind and Death.
Sources:
Berger, Arthur S., and Joyce Berger. The Encyclopedia of
Parapsychology and Psychical Research. New York: Paragon
House, 1991.
Flew, Antony G. N., ed. Body, Mind and Death. New York:
Macmillan, 1964.
. Is There a Case for Disembodied Spirit? Journal
of the American Society for Psychical Research 66 (1972).
. The Logic of Mortality. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.
. A New Approach to Psychical Research. London: C. A.
Watts, 1953.
Ludwig, J. K., ed. Philosophy and Parapsychology. Buffalo,
N.Y.: Promethus Books, 1978.
