Antony Flew - Biography

Biography

Flew, the son of Methodist minister/theologian Robert Newton Flew (1886–1962) and his wife Winifred née Garrard (1887–1982), was born in London, England. He was educated at St Faith's School, Cambridge followed by Kingswood School, Bath. He is said to have concluded by the age of 15 that there was no God. During the Second World War he studied Japanese at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and was a Royal Air Force intelligence officer. After a period with the Inter-Services Topographical Department in Oxford, he was posted to Bletchley Park in June 1944.

After the war, Flew achieved a first class degree in Literae Humaniores at St John's College, Oxford. Flew was a graduate student of Gilbert Ryle, prominent in ordinary language philosophy. Both Flew and Ryle were among many Oxford philosophers fiercely criticised in Ernest Gellner's book Words and Things (1959). A 1954 debate with Michael Dummett over backward causation was an early highlight in Flew's career.

For a year, Flew was a lecturer in philosophy at Christ Church, Oxford. Afterwards, he was a lecturer for four years at the University of Aberdeen, and a professor of philosophy at the University of Keele for twenty years. Between 1973 and 1983 he was professor of philosophy at the University of Reading. At this time, he developed one of his most famous arguments, the No true Scotsman fallacy in his 1975 book, Thinking About Thinking. Upon his retirement, Flew took up a half-time post for a few years at York University, Toronto.

Flew married on 28 June 1952. He had two daughters. Flew died on 8 April 2010, while nursed in an Extended Care Facility in Reading, England, suffering from dementia.