David Stove | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1927-09-15)15 September 1927 Moree, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 2 June 1994(1994-06-02) (aged 66) Mulgoa, New South Wales,[1] Australia |
| Education | |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney |
| Academic advisors | John Anderson |
| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy Australian realism |
| Main interests | Philosophy of science,metaphysics |
| Notable ideas | Subjective idealism rests on theworst argument |
| This article is part ofa series on |
| Conservatism in Australia |
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David Charles Stove (15 September 1927 – 2 June 1994) was an Australianphilosopher whose writings often challenged prevailing academic orthodoxy. He was known for his critiques ofpostmodernism,feminism, andmulticulturalism.
His work inphilosophy of science included criticisms ofDavid Hume'sinductive scepticism. He offered a positive response to theproblem of induction in his 1986 work,The Rationality of Induction. InPopper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists, Stove attacked the leading philosophers of science,Karl Popper,Thomas Kuhn,Imre Lakatos, andPaul Feyerabend, on the grounds that their commitment to the thesis that all logic isdeductive led toskepticism.
In 1985 Stove held a competition to find the "worst argument in the world", and awarded the prize to himself for the argument "we can know things only under our forms of understanding/as they are related to us, etc, therefore we cannot know things as they are in themselves". He called this argument "The Gem" and argued that it appeared widely in various forms.[2]
His bookThe Plato Cult and Other Philosophical Follies contains the influential essay "What Is Wrong With Our Thoughts?". According to philosopherNicholas Shackel, this essay showed that "there are indefinitely many ways of cheating intellectually and for most there is no simple way to put one’s finger on how the cheat is effected."[3] In the book, he also coined the phraseHorror Victorianorum (terror of the Victorian), an extreme distaste or condemnation ofVictorian culture, art, and design.
Stove was also a critic ofsociobiology, describing it as a new religion in which genes play the role of gods.[4]
Stove andDavid M. Armstrong both resisted what they saw as attempts byMarxists to infiltrate the Faculty of Arts at theUniversity of Sydney. In 1984–85 Stove protested publicly that the faculty was favouring women in appointments.[5][6]
In "A Farewell to Arts", Stove wrote that he abandoned Marxism when he discovered "what real intellectual work was".[7]
In his essay "Why You Should be A Conservative", Stove argued that actions can have unforeseen and unwelcome consequences; that just because something is wrong or evil, it does not follow that the world would be better off without it; and that a decline in respect for life and property had led to a decline in quality of life.[8]
In "Racial and Other Antagonisms" (1989) Stove asserted that racism is not a form ofprejudice but common sense: "Almost everyone unites in declaring 'racism' false and detestable. Yet absolutely everyone knows it is true".[9]
In "The Intellectual Capacity of Women" (1990) he stated his belief that "the intellectual capacity of women is on the whole inferior to that of men".[10][11]
Since his death in 1994 four collections of his writings have been published. Two were edited by art criticRoger Kimball:Against the Idols of the Age andDarwinian Fairytales. Kimball also wrote the foreword toWhat's Wrong With Benevolence, in which he writes "The most thrilling intellectual discovery of my adult life came in 1996 when I chanced upon the work of the Australian philosopher David Stove".
With his wife Jessie, he had two children, Judith andR. J. Stove.
Stove enjoyedcricket,baroque music, andgardening.[12]
Stove committedsuicide after being diagnosed withesophageal cancer.[13][14]
Collaborations
Selected publications
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)Philosophy67, pp. 233–240.
