Alan Ryan

Alan James Ryan FBA is Warden of New College, Oxford, and Professor of Politics at the University of Oxford. He was born 9 May 1940, and was educated at Christ's Hospital, Balliol College, Oxford, and University College, London. Elected a fellow of New College in 1969, he returned in 1996 to take up the Wardenship. He was made a Fellow of the British Academy in 1986. Ryan was for many years married to the daughter of British legal philosopher and former chair of jurisprudence at Oxford H.L.A. Hart.

Ryan is a recognised authority on the work of John Stuart Mill, having contributed directly to the ‘Reversionary’ school, which led to a re-examination of Mill’s work from the 1970s. His academic work also takes in broader themes in political theory, including the philosophy of social science, the nature of property, and liberalism of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Ryan has held positions at the Universities of Essex, Oxford, and Keele and Princeton Universities. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement. He is widely regarded as a leading ‘public intellectual’ in the UK.

Ryan was, as a reviewer, involved in some controversy regarding the publication of a book by Oxford University Press, called Making Names. See: http://www.btinternet.com/~akme/mnblurb.html.

Ryan can be heard giving a brief account of Mill's philosophy, and a defense of him as the greatest British philosopher, on the BBC Radio 4 programme In Our Time, here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/ram/gpv_adv_js_mill.ram

Books

The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill (1970): an examination of Mill’s philosophy of science, its relation to his ethical thought, and a defence of the view that Mill’s work is largely coherent, concentrating on Mill’s A System of Logic.

The Philosophy of the Social Sciences(1970): an introduction to the philosophy of social science.

J.S. Mill (1975): a guide through the important works of Mill, and the themes to be found therein.

Property and Political Theory (1984)

Property (1987)

(1993)

John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (1995)

Liberal Anxieties and Liberal Education (1998): given as a lecture series at the University of California, Berkeley, contains autobiographical material.

Sources

• Prospect magazine
• New York Review of Books
• Alan Ryan: CV
• Department of Politics and International Relations
• Debrett's People of Today (12th edn, London: Debrett, 1999), p. 1715

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