Frederick Copleston 1907 – 1994

Frederick Charles Copleston was an English Jesuit priest, philosopher, and historian of philosophy and the author of the standard English-language survey of Western philosophy, A History of Philosophy, in nine volumes published between 1946 and 1975. He spent much of his career at Heythrop College and at Gregorian University in Rome and held visiting chairs in the United States. He is also remembered for the 1948 BBC radio debate with Bertrand Russell on the existence of God, in which he set out a version of the cosmological argument from contingency. His careful, sympathetic readings of philosophers across the spectrum shaped a generation of students.