Alan Montefiore
British Philosopher and
Emeritus Fellow of
Balliol College, Oxford
Welcome to Alan Montefiore’s website
We hope that the information on Alan Montefiore’s life, work and achievements that you will find here will be useful and of interest.
Montefiore’s is a unique voice with a message that is permanently of value – deep-reaching and disconcerting. Philosophy and the Human Paradox may destabilise many readers’ convictions and it may well induce readers to re-read philosophical works in a new way.
Steven Lukes, New York University, USA
Topics about Alan Montefiore
Books on Amazon
A Modern Introduction to Moral Philosophy. Originally published in 1958, this book shows how a systematic consideration of what exactly may be meant by calling anything ‘good’, inevitably leads on to the more general and fundamental problem of the relations between value-judgments and statements of fact. It does on to explain some of the difficult and far-reaching issues which this problem involves. The book is intended as an introduction for students interested in finding out the nature and point of modern methods of philosophic analysis when applied to problems of moral philosophy.
Significant Events
Alan Montefiore in conversation with HRH The Duke of Edinburgh and former Prime Minister James Callaghan at a fundraising dinner for the Wiener Library, November 1987.
Biography
Alan Claude Robin Goldsmid Montefiore (29 December 1926 – 29 October 2024) was a British philosopher renowned for his work in moral and political philosophy, contemporary French thought, and the philosophy of education.
He continued to dedicate himself to fundraising efforts to secure the future of the Library throughout this time, culminating in an impressive fundraising dinner on Whitehall attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, where Montefiore proposed the toast. These philanthropic efforts were critical to the continuation of the Wiener Library into the 1990s and beyond.
Tributes to Alan Montefiore
LIFE AND PHILOSOPHY
Essays to honour ALAN MONTEFIORE
“When it came to finding an overarching theme, there was no question that the complex intertwining between the personal and the conceptual, life and philosophy‘, was the obvious contender. What strikes the reader, both of Alan‘s books – especially his recent and more personal Philosophical Retrospective – and of these contributions, is how much the driving force behind Alan‘s philosophy has been his personal experience that life‘s conflicts are what make philosophical inquiry both urgent and valuable. However, there is nothing banal or obvious about this connection. Quite the opposite. In his book, as Lilian Alweiss puts it, ―Alan refers to tensions such that he could no longer even make sense of himself… It seems that only when Alan came to understand the rationale and indeed philosophical significance of this tension, that he was able to find himself again… This comprehension may well have rendered him into the serene person I know.” – Catherine Audard-Montefiore – Read More.