The Royal Institute of Philosophy, founded in 1925,[1] is a charitable organisation that holds and funds lectures and events on philosophical topics. It publishes two journals and offers grant programmes as part of its mission to share philosophical speculation as widely as practicable.[2]
History
While waiting to go into prison for sponsoring an anti-war pamphlet in 1916, Bertrand Russell gave his Lectures on Logical Atomism in the hall where the Institute's annual lecture series are now held. He finished them just before he was incarcerated. The Home Secretary, Lord Balfour, gave the extraordinary instruction that the prisoner should be allowed writing materials in his cell, in which he produced his Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy, published in 1919. Russell, together with Balfour, L. T. Hobhouse, Samuel Alexander, Harold Laski, and the Institute's Journal's first editor, Sydney Hooper, founded the Institute, originally known as the British Institute of Philosophical Studies, in 1925.
Professor H. B. Acton, Director of the Institute while Professor at Bedford College, London, who is commemorated by occasional special lectures, was succeeded by Professor Godfrey Vesey, the founding Professor of Philosophy of the Open University. On his retirement after 13 years as Director he was appointed Fellow of the Institute in 1979. Professor Anthony O'Hear of the University of Bradford became Director in the session 1994-95. In 2019, the new Academic Director was named as Julian Baggini,[3] and he was succeeded by Professor Edward Harcourt in 2022.[4] The Institute's title of Royal was granted in 1947. The Institute's managing director since 2022 is Melanie Nightingale.[5]
