Antony Flew

Antony Flew ( often written erroneously Anthony Flew ) ( born February 11, 1923 in London, † April 8, 2010 in Reading ) is a British philosopher, was long known as a representative of libertarianism and atheism.

In his book Thinking about Thinking he wrote about a form of logical fallacy, which has since been as No true Scotsman (No true Scotsman fallacy ) is known.

Life

• Biographical stations

Flew, the son of a Methodist priest, since the 1950s was an increasingly prominent atheist author in the English-speaking world. His conversion to deism, which took place around 2005, attracted large attention accordingly. After the publication of his last, not authored by him (see below) book, There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (2007), he lived in a nursing home for dementia and no longer stood for public statements available.

Flew was a member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal.

Conversion to Deism

After Flew was known for decades as an atheist, he confessed in 2004 to having changed his view and to be now Deist. This deistic God is not the same as the Christian, Jewish or Islamic God and do not care for the faith of the people or their deeds Flew explains his change of position in a letter to Richard Carrier (October 2004), originally with the " impossibility of a naturalistic present theory of the origin of the first kind which reproduces itself by means of DNA ". This is the only reason why he began to draw a Aristotelian God into consideration. He pulled this reasoning, however, a short time later in another letter to R. Carrier ( December 29 2004 ) back: "I 've noticed that I've embarrassed myself when I accepted that there is no demonstrable theories for the development of inanimate matter would be toward the first living creature capable of reproduction. "

In 2005 a new edition planned by God and Philosophy Flew wanted to incorporate this issue and explain its new position. This new edition, published in 2005 by God and Philosophy, however, mentioned only in a new preface ten points that should be dealt with in future editions, without giving precise information about its actual position.

In his book published in 2007 " There Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind " Flew why he was from atheists to believers explained. Although Antony Flew over a reporter for the New York Times admitted that he has not written the book, though published under his name itself. The book was thus essentially written by the Christian author Roy Varghese, who also confirmed this himself. This version of Roy Varghese has been revised according to the publishing publishing house Harper Collins again from the evangelical Pastor Bob Hostetler and expanded. After this controversy, Antony Flew was asked again; in a subsequent opinion, he confirmed that he is to what was written in the book.

Writings

• Logic and Language ( A. Flew ed.), Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1951
• A New Approach to Psychical Research, Watts & Co.. London 1953
• Essays in conceptual analysis, (A. Flew ed.), London 1956
• Hume's Philosophy of Belief: a study of his first Inquiry, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1961
• God and Philosophy, Harcourt Brace and World, 1966
• Evolutionary Ethics (New Study in Ethics p ), Macmillan 1968
• An introduction to western philosophy: ideas and argument from Plato to Sartre, The Bobbs- Merrill Company, 1971
• Thinking about Thinking, Fontana, 1976
• Dictionary of Philosophy, St. Martin's Press, 1979
• Politics of Procrustes: Contradictions of Enforced Equality, Temple Smith, London 1981
• Did Jesus Rise From the Dead? The Resurrection Debate, with Gary R. Habermas, Harper Collins, 1987
• Merely Mortal: Can You Survive Your own Death, Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2000?
• How to Think Straight: An Introduction to Critical Reasoning
• Does God Exist: The Craig- Flew Debate
• God and Philosophy
• Atheistic Humanism
• There is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, HarperOne 2007