Winston Herbert Frederick Barnes

Winston Herbert Frederick Barnes was born on 30 May 1909 in Ashton, England. A philosopher, he critiqued the analytic philosophers of his day including Wittgenstein, the Vienna Circle, and fellow Gifford Lecturer, A.J. Ayer. Lecturer at the University of Liverpool before the Second World War, he was made Professor of Philosophy at Durham University in 1945. In 1959, he became Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, followed by Philosopher and Vice-Chancellor at Liverpool from 1963 to 1969. His last position was the Sir Samuel Hall Professor of Philosophy at the University of Manchester in 1970. 

His inaugural lecture at Durham, ‘Is Philosophy Possible?’, was later expanded into The Philosophical Predicament (1950). Barnes confronted those who argued that the traditional speculative and metaphysical branches of philosophy must be abandoned because of analytic, logical, and linguistic findings. Much of Barnes’s work is unknown and few contemporary philosophers would agree with his narrow view of philosophy. However, his lucid and polished style of writing deserves a wider audience.