R.I.P. Jonathan Bennett
A distinguished philosopher. More: A servant to philosophy. I wonder how many students have been helped by the website he curated during his retirement. It hosts “versions of some classics of early modern philosophy, and a few from the 19th century, prepared with a view to making them easier to read while leaving intact the main arguments, doctrines, and lines of thought.”
He wrote, among other things, a classic historical study – Kant’s Analytic (1966) – and a classic article, “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn” (journal version here) which contrasts Huck’s conscience with Heinrich Himmler’s and Jonathan Edwards’s. He especially abhorred Edwards’s doctrine of hell. (To put it mildly: this doctrine sits poorly with my having titled this blog entry “R.I.P.”) (Bennett: “I am afraid that I shall be doing an injustice to Edwards’ many virtues, and to his great intellectual energy and inventiveness; for my concern is only with the worst thing about him – namely his morality, which was worse than Himmler’s.”)
He and his wife took their own lives: she, apparently without assistance, in 2014; he “through Canada’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program.”
Browsing his writings, I found this review of The Shorter Pepys; it ends with a quotation from the diarist about dreaming … and death.
He wrote, among other things, a classic historical study – Kant’s Analytic (1966) – and a classic article, “The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn” (journal version here) which contrasts Huck’s conscience with Heinrich Himmler’s and Jonathan Edwards’s. He especially abhorred Edwards’s doctrine of hell. (To put it mildly: this doctrine sits poorly with my having titled this blog entry “R.I.P.”) (Bennett: “I am afraid that I shall be doing an injustice to Edwards’ many virtues, and to his great intellectual energy and inventiveness; for my concern is only with the worst thing about him – namely his morality, which was worse than Himmler’s.”)
He and his wife took their own lives: she, apparently without assistance, in 2014; he “through Canada’s MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) program.”
Browsing his writings, I found this review of The Shorter Pepys; it ends with a quotation from the diarist about dreaming … and death.