death_date era school_tradition influences color main_interests birth_date article_title region
25 july 2004 20th-century philosophy empiricism john anderson , gilbert ryle #b 0c4de history of philosophy , history of ideas 9 september 1914 john passmore
 western philosophers
john passmore

john passmore ac -lrb- 9 september 1914 -- 25 july 2004 -rrb- was an australian philosopher .
passmore was born in manly , sydney .
he was educated at sydney boys high school and subsequently graduated from the university of sydney with first-class honours in english literature and philosophy , and continued his studies to become a secondary-school teacher .
in 1934 he accepted the position of assistant lecturer in philosophy at the university of sydney , continuing teaching there until 1949 .
in 1948 he went to study at the university of london .
from 1950 to 1955 he was professor of philosophy at the university of otago in new zealand .
in 1955 he spent a year at the university of oxford on a carnegie grant .
upon his return to australia he took up a post at the institute of advanced studies at the australian national university , where he was professor of philosophy in the research school of social sciences from 1958 to 1979 .
in 1960 he was ziskind visiting professor at brandeis university in the united states .
he subsequently lectured in england , the united states , mexico , japan , and in various european countries .
passmore was as much an historian of ideas as a philosopher , and his scholarship always paid careful attention to the complex historical context of philosophical problems .
he published about twenty books , many of which have been translated .
passmore will be remembered as a thinker who helped to shape public debate and to open up domains of applied philosophy and the history of ideas to the wider world .
in his book `` man 's responsibility for nature '' -lrb- 1974 -rrb- passmore argued that there is urgent need to change our attitude to the environment , and that humans can not continue unconstrained exploitation of the biosphere .
however , he rejected the view that we need to abandon the western tradition of scientific rationalism , and was unsympathetic towards attempts to articulate environmental concern through radical revisions of our ethical framework , as advocated by deep ecologists , which he conceived as misguided mysticism or irrationalism .
passmore 's unequivocal anthropocentrism made him a reference point in the discourse of environmental ethics and many treatises in the field begin with -lrb- or include -rrb- a criticism of his views .
passmore 's skepticism about attempts to attribute intrinsic value to nature , and his preferred position of valuing nature in terms of what it contributes to the flourishing of sentient creatures -lrb- including humans -rrb- , is perhaps not as unfashionable now as it was in the years following the publication of `` man 's responsibility for nature '' .
passmore described himself as a `` pessimistic humanist '' who regarded neither human beings nor human societies as perfectible .
passmore took a keen interest in film and in performing arts and was a director of the australian elizabethan theatre trust .
in 1994 he was appointed a companion of the order of australia -lrb- ac -rrb- , australia 's highest civilian honour .
he died in 2004 and was survived by his wife doris and two daughters .
