Talk:John Anderson (philosopher)

Latest comment: 3 years ago by Bjenks in topic Freethought Society

Anderson and the CP

edit

I query the statement in para 2 that Anderson became a member of the Communist Party. I have always understod that he was a frequenter of CP meetings, to the point of dominating them, but without being formally a member. The ADB says "he associated with the communist movement. He wrote for their journals, sometimes under a nom-de-plume, but became disillusioned with the Stalinist party-line".[1] When he eventually saw through the Stalin régime, he simply parted company with Lance Sharkey and fellows. This is just one item which could benefit from a citation--Bjenks 05:34, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Good call. I've adjusted the wording to reflect the info in one of the existing external links but have left your citation request in place as some further parts of this par may benefit from further reference support? --Wm 09:18, 26 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

Triffic, that satisfies my query, though I agree the tag can stay there in the hope that a suitable ref can be found.

References

  1. ^ [1]

Next: Anderson and the Push

edit

I'm not happy with the statement Anderson was a significant figure in the group of intellectuals known as the Sydney Push. It's misleading in that (a) it implies Anderson was a 'member' or associate of the Push--which is quite untrue in my experience; and (b) only some of the Push could be called intellectuals. A much greater number of others were anti-intellectuals, artists, musos, journos, crims, sexual opportunists, etc. Before John's retirement in 1958, the Libertarian Society held its weekly meetings in the Psychology Room. That was specifically because John did not approve of Jim Baker's breakaway group from the former Free Thought Society. More than once at lunchtime I witnessed Anderson entering or leaving his study (which was next door) and casting a distasteful gaze on those coming or going from the Libertarian meeting. Only after his retirement were meetings able to be held in the nearby Philosophy Room--the preferred venue. There was (to a newcomer like myself) something quite mysterious about why such a gulf should exist between people with almost identical views about politics and morality, etc. But the fact is that Anderson never attended any Libertarian or Push gathering. He was held in respect but not love by his libertarian disciples. We had a lot of fun singing his wonderful pet songs, such as Professor John Glaister but he was never there, not in the '50s, and older Push habitués like Lex Banning, Dick Appleton and Harry Peters never alluded to his being there in the '40s. --Bjenks 13:19, 27 April 2007 (UTC)Reply

The last expansion and changes to the article were mine--I forgot to sign in. Bjenks 11:01, 1 May 2007 (UTC)Reply

Jim Baker

edit

I would like to start an article on Jim Baker in view of his central importance to the Sydney Push and to the teachings of John Anderson. It may be that his notability will be questioned but, imho, he deserves equal ranking with David Armstrong, David Stove, J. L. Mackie and Eugene Kamenka, who each have separate biogs. Comment is invited. Bjenks (talk) 01:41, 28 June 2008 (UTC)Reply

Coming back to this, I note with approval that there is now a stub on A J (Jim) Baker. Cheers Bjenks (talk) 05:35, 1 April 2010 (UTC)Reply
edit

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on John Anderson (philosopher). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

  • If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
  • If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 03:16, 27 November 2017 (UTC)Reply

Freethought Society

edit

I've recently had occasion to study J. G. Packer's exhaustive Andersonian bibliography (now added to the Bibliography section of the article) from which is clear that Freethought was always one word in the society's title. The SMH got it wrong in citation 11. This is confirmed by the usage of former Society member Jim Baker in this article. Bjenks (talk) 05:39, 4 August 2021 (UTC)Reply