George Edward Hughes | |
|---|---|
 George Edward Hughes | |
| Born | (1918-06-08)June 8, 1918 Waterford, Ireland |
| Died | March 4, 1994(1994-03-04) (aged 75) Wellington, New Zealand |
| Occupations | Philosopher and logician |
| Known for | An Introduction to Modal Logic (withMax Cresswell) |
| Academic background | |
| Education | |
| Academic work | |
| Institutions | |
| Notable students | Max Cresswell |
| Main interests | |
George Edward Hughes (8 June 1918 – 4 March 1994) was an Irish-born New Zealand philosopher andlogician whose principal scholarly works were concerned withmodal logic andmedieval philosophy.
Hughes was born on 8 June 1918 inWaterford, Ireland. His English parents George James Hughes and Gertrude Sparks moved to Scotland in the early 1920s, as a result of theIrish War of Independence. George graduated MA with First Class Honours in Philosophy and English, and then in pure Philosophy, from theUniversity of Glasgow. He then studied for a year at theUniversity of Cambridge, before being called back to Glasgow as anassistant lecturer. Subsequently, he heldlectureships at theUniversity College of South Wales atCardiff, and then theUniversity College of North Wales atBangor. In 1951 he was appointed to the first Chair in Philosophy at theVictoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, a position from which he retired in 1984. He died inWellington on 4 March 1994.
Notable influences on Hughes' philosophical development includedJohn Wisdom andLudwig Wittgenstein, from whom he took classes at Cambridge;J. L. Austin, a leading exponent ofordinary language philosophy; andArthur Prior, with whom he found much in common when they met in New Zealand.
Hughes was a gifted and revered teacher who played a prominent role in academic affairs at Victoria University. He is well remembered for his passion for clarity, his uncompromising intellectual honesty, and his humanity and gentleness.[1]
His early interests were inethics and thephilosophy of religion, but he is most widely known for books on modal logic co-authored with his colleague and former studentMax Cresswell. In 1968 they publishedAn Introduction to Modal Logic, the first modern textbook in the area. This book, which has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese and Spanish, was influential in introducing many generations of students and researchers toKripke semantics, a mathematical theory of meaning that revolutionised the study of modal logics and led to applications ranging from the semantics ofnatural languages toreasoning about the behaviour ofcomputer programs.Vaughan Pratt, the creator ofdynamic logic, has written in reference to his own motivation that "a weekend with Hughes and Cresswell convinced me that a most harmonious union between modal logic and programs was possible".[2]
Hughes' other special interest was inmedieval philosophical logic, where his main projects were the preparation ofphilosophical commentaries onLatin manuscripts ofJohn Buridan andPaul of Venice, as well as English translations of the originals.
He was also a priest in the Anglican (Episcopal) Church, having been ordained inBangor Cathedral in 1950. At that time there was a need for clergy who could conduct services in both Welsh and English, so the then Bishop of Bangor ordained several men whom he considered suitable, but who had not had the usual theological training. Hughes had a flair for languages that enabled him to quickly learn how to pronounce the set words of the service even though he was not a Welsh speaker.
He was married with five children. His wife Beryl Hughes (1920 – 2015), an historian, taught in the History Department of Victoria University for 25 years, and was one of the founders of theWomen's Studies programme there.
