Charlie Dunbar Broad

The English philosopher Charlie Dunbar Broad (1887-1971) published in all the major fields of philosophy but is known chiefly for his work in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

On December 30, 1887, C.D. Broad was born at Harlesden in Middlesex, now a suburb of London. He was the only child of middle-class parents and was brought up in comfortable circumstances in a household that included several adult relatives. His early education was at Dulwich College. There he was encouraged to concentrate on scientific subjects and mathematics. He earned a science scholarship to Cambridge University in 1906.

His work in science at Trinity College, Cambridge, was distinguished, but Broad felt that he would never be outstanding as a scientist. Partly owing to the powerful influence of a roster of eminent philosophers at Trinity, a group which included J. M. E. McTaggart, W. E. Johnson, G. E. Moore, and Bertrand Russell, Broad shifted his studies to philosophy. Here too he took first-class honors. In 1911 he won a Trinity fellowship for his dissertation, later published as Perception, Physics and Reality. There followed a decade of teaching in Scotland. During World War I, Broad worked as a consultant to the Ministry of Munitions, exempting him from military service in a war he did not support.

In 1920 he was elected to the chair of philosophy at Bristol University, and 3 years later he was invited back to Cambridge to succeed McTaggart as lecturer. There, having decided that marriage was not for him, he settled into rooms once occupied by Isaac Newton and into a fixed, routine life. Lecturing and writing were his chief concerns, and he avoided the famous weekly meetings of the Moral Science Club, which were dominated by the more articulate Ludwig Wittgenstein and Moore. In 1933 he was elected Knight-bridge professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge.

Broad's lecture notes formed the basis of his numerous books, of which Scientific Thought (1923) and Mind and Its Place in Nature (1925) are perhaps the most important. His philosophical work is always competent and well informed if not highly original, and it is expressed in language of admirable lucidity and style. In addition to the usual academic subjects, Broad long pursued an interest in psychical research and urged other philosophers to do the same.

After his retirement from teaching in 1953, Broad lectured for a year in the United States. He then returned to Cambridge to live "an exceptionally sheltered life." There he died on March 11, 1971.

Further Reading

Paul A. Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of C. D. Broad (1959), includes a lengthy autobiographical essay in which Broad gives a very candid and rather unflattering appraisal of his own character and accomplishments. The same volume includes a number of critical, but more appreciative, essays by contemporaries, together with detailed replies by Broad. It also features a complete bibliography through 1959. Also worth consulting is the critical study of Broad's theory of perception, Martin Lean, Sense Perception and Matter: A Critical Analysis of C. D. Broad's Theory of Perception (1953).

Broad, Charlie Dunbar (1887-1971) English philosopher. Educated at Cambridge, Broad became a life Fellow of Trinity College, and was professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge from 1933 to 1953. His interests spanned almost the entire field of philosophy, and his extensive writings include works on relativity theory, ethics, the history of philosophy, and parapsychology. He maintained a traditional respect for the central problems of modern philosophy, and his lucid works exhibit a scrupulous attention to the variety of possible solutions and their difficulties. The attitude gave him a wry scepticism of philosophical fashions, particularly those associated with the more impressionistic approach of the later Wittgenstein. A characteristic expression of his stance was that on the issue of life after death we can only wait and see, or alternatively, which is no less likely, wait and not see. His main works include Mind and its Place in Nature (1925) and the two-volume Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy (1933-8).

Professor of philosophy and president of the Society for Psychical Research, London, 1935-36 and 1958-60. Dr. Broad had a distinguished academic career and was a prominent researcher and theorist in the field of parapsychology, although known chiefly for his work in epistemology and the philosophy of science.

Born December 30, 1887, in Harlesden, Middlesex, England, he was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge University, as a scholar in natural science. His dissertation became the basis of his book Perception, Physics, and Reality (1914). He was assistant professor of logic at St. Andrews University, Scotland (1912-20), lecturer at University College, Dundee, Scotland (1914-20), professor of philosophy at Bristol University (1920-23), then began his long tenure at Trinity College, Cambridge (1933-53), where he was eventually named Knight-bridge Professor of Moral Philosophy. He wrote numerous books in the philosophy of science and ethics and was noted for his clarity of thought on the many abstruse aspects of philosophy.

Even as a young man Broad was interested in psychic re-search. He joined the Society for Psychical Research, London, in 1920, where he served as president twice, and trained his analytical mind on this field. His early book, Mind and Its Place in Nature (1923) caused a stir in philosophical circles because it included evidence of psychic phenomena that suggested the possibility of human life after death. However, as with his other writings, skeptics of psychic phenomena praised the clarity and accuracy of his reasoning. His more mature Religion Philosophy, and Psychical Research: Selected Essays (1953) set forth the idea of "basic limiting principles" which Broad believed formed the framework of modern technological society. Accordingly, any event outside that framework can fittingly be labeled "paranormal."

Broad lived in Cambridge after his retirement and died there on March 11, 1971.

Sources:

Broad, C. D. Lectures on Psychical Research, Incorporating the Perrott Lectures Given in Cambridge University in 1939 and 1960. New York: Humanities Press, 1962.

——. The Mind and Its Place in Nature. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1925.

——. Perception, Physics, and Reality: An Inquiry into the Information that Physical Science Can Supply about the Real. 1914.

——. Personal Identity and Survival. London: Society for Psychical Research, 1958.

——. Religion, Philosophy, and Psychical Research. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953.

"In Memoriam: Professor C. D. Broad, 1887-1971." Journal of the SPR 46 (1971): 107.

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