Stanley Victor Keeling

Stanley Victor Keeling (9 August 1894 – 28 November 1979), usually cited as S. V. Keeling, was a British philosopher, formerly a reader at University College London (UCL). He is best known for his 1934 monograph Descartes, printed in a second edition in 1968, which for decades served as the standard English introduction to the philosophy of Descartes. Keeling is also known for his 1934 annotated edition of Philosophical Studies by J. M. E. McTaggart. Honoring his passion for ancient, especially Greek, philosophy the UCL Department of Philosophy administer an annual memorial lecture, biennial colloquium and a postgraduate scholarship in ancient philosophy in his name.

Biography

Stanley Keeling was born, the younger of two sons to an ironmonger, in Islington on 9 August 1894. He completed his childhood studies at Southend Secondary School, Essex, in (or around) 1911. Internees were expected to work within the Centre, some sewing mailbags or, more commonly, on the moors, crushing grain or stone-breaking and carting granite at a quarry but enjoyed comparative comfort and relative liberty in return. ). After his death, Keeling would describe Hicks as a teacher "wholly engrossed in philosophy" who "firmly believed that it, as no other subject, could impart to his students an influence and a training such as would render them habitually reflective about their existence and destiny".

Bertrand Russell, along with Alfred North Whitehead, convinced Keeling to continue his studies at Trinity College, Cambridge.

On completion of his BA Keeling was awarded (with Russell's support in solicitation) the John Stuart Mill Scholarship in Philosophy of Mind and Logic, This was renewed for a second year and allowed Keeling to spend the two years following graduation studying abroad in, as he chose, France. and was awarded his Docteur ès lettres (D. ès L.). Keeling was also to be honored in France as an officier d' Académie. – at the end of the decade during which Keeling had published his most famous scholarly works – and shortly before the outbreak of World War II (during part of which Keeling acted as Head of Department).

The Times obituary report's that Keeling's "thirst for depth and precision" could be satisfied "only precariously among his philosophical colleagues at London". But that he had found "some relief" whilst employed at UCL through the conversations he had had with Émile Meyerson, Léon Robin, and Étienne Gilson during his frequent returns to France. (The latter of which he had described in Descartes as a "prince among Cartesian scholars". ) Keeling retired in 1954 to Paris with his wife and died there on 28 November 1979.

Works Logic and Reasoning (1929). Published by Ernest Benn Ltd., (London) as no. 83 in Benn's Sixpenny Library series. "McTaggart's Metaphysics" in: Dickinson, Goldsworthy Lowes (ed.), J. McT. E. McTaggart, (Cambridge, 1931). Descartes (Ernest Benn Ltd., 1934 in the Leaders of Philosophy series; 2nd edn, Oxford, 1968). (Ed. with intro.) (ed.) Philosophical Studies by the Late J. Mct. Ellis Mctaggart (1934; repr. with a new Introduction by Gerald Rochelle, Bristol, 1996). Descartes: Annual Lecture on a Master Mind. Henriette Hertz Trust of the British Academy, Proceedings of the British Academy, vol. 34 (1948), pp. 57–81; and separately as monograph (1948). Time and Duration: An Unfinished Essay, ed. by Gerald Rochelle, with an introduction by Edward Senior (Little Wenlock, 1990).