Anderson, John(1893–1962)
John Anderson, the Scottish-born Australian philosopher, was the son of a politically radical headmaster. Born at Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, and educated at Hamilton Academy and at the University of Glasgow, which he entered in 1911, he was at first principally interested in mathematics and physics; he turned to philosophy partly under the influence of his brother William, then a lecturer at Glasgow and later professor of philosophy at Auckland University College, New Zealand. Anderson graduated with an M.A. in 1917, with first-class honors both in the school of philosophy and in the school of mathematics and natural philosophy (physics). He lectured at Cardiff (1918–1919), Glasgow (1919–1920), and Edinburgh (1920–1927) before accepting an appointment in 1927 as professor of philosophy at the University of Sydney, Australia. He remained there, except for a visit to Scotland and the United States in 1938, until his retirement in 1958. He had almost no personal contact with philosophers in England, a country he regarded with the suspicion characteristic of a Scottish radical.
Anderson's career as a professor was an unusually stormy one. He attacked whatever he took to encourage an attitude of servility—and this included such diversified enemies as Christianity, social welfare work, professional patriotism, censorship, educational reform of a utilitarian sort, and communism.
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