In his two series of lectures, Findlay argues that all descriptions of the human condition which fail to account for the mystical and transcendental are incomplete. In the first series, he sketches a methodological programme to follow and examines the realms of physical reality and cognitive functioning. In his second series, he examines the phenomena of the world, concluding with a survey of the transcendent.
John Niemeyer Findlay was born on 25 November 1903 in Pretoria, South Africa. A philosopher, his eclectic interests provided a counterbalance to standard philosophical orthodoxies. Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at the University of Otago in 1934, he then held professorships at Rhodes University College, Grahamstown, and the University of Natal. In 1948, took up the chair at King’s College, Newcastle, and in 1951, the chair at King’s College, London. In 1966, he moved to Yale as Professor of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, and in 1972, was appointed Borden Parker Bowne Chair of Philosophy at Boston University.
In 1962, Findlay was invited to teach at the University of Texas, returning the following year to lecture on Hegel. His most original work was Values and Intentions (1961) based on his 1957 Henriette Hertz lecture to the British Academy, ‘The Structure of the Kingdom of Ends’. Other works include Logical Investigations (1970), Ascent to the Absolute (1970), Axiological Ethics (1970), Plato: the Written and Unwritten Doctrines (1974), Plato and Platonism: An Introduction (1978), and Kant and the Transcendental Object (1981).
