The Northern Line

No 5 August 2007

An on-line journal dedicated to the life and work of John Anderson

Edited by Mark Weblin. This journal is funded entirely from donations. Please forward any donations to 226 Blaxland Rd, Wentworth Falls 2782 Email: [email protected]

In this issue: John Anderson in Scotland

Introduction...... 1 The Democratic Intellect ...... 5 From Idealist to Realist...... 13

Introduction

Very little is known of John Anderson’s residence in Scotland and of his writings which survive from that time, very little is widely available. Jim Packer has done some important work in the past few years, typing out some of John’s essays including his M.A. thesis on William James.1 The remainder of the primary material, including the correspondence between John and Jenny, exists only in manuscript form in the Anderson Archives.2 In the only continuous treatment of this subject, Brian Kennedy devotes a few chapters to John’s activities from this time and this research was based on three primary sources: John’s letters to Jenny, John’s academic essays, and John’s contributions to the Glasgow University Magazine (G.U.M.).3 Kennedy had access to the Anderson papers while Sandy Anderson was still alive (i.e. before the Anderson Archive was created) and from this material Kennedy derives a number a conclusions about John’s personality and character: John was engaged in sibling rivalry with his elder brother William; John’s emotional demands on his mother may have contributed to her going into a sanatorium; John maintained a public academic persona which conflicted with his private radical persona; John studied for two degrees at Glasgow.4

The following two articles have been written as chapters for my biography of Anderson’s life and influence. ‘The Democratic Intellect’ will appear in A Philosophic Life and will focus on the general social and cultural influences which played a part in Anderson’s life. ‘From Idealist to Realist’ will appear in From Realist to Idealist and will deal more specifically with Anderson’s philosophical development. In the preparation of these chapters, I have referred to some of the papers from this period held in the Anderson Archives and consulted some works pertaining to the social, political and cultural life of Scotland during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These latter works include George Davie’s work on the ‘Democratic Intellect’, A.O. Morgan’s work on Keir Hardie, and a number of academic articles on Scottish philosophy. While in one sense this is rather narrow background reading, it has been sufficient to illustrate the general social trends existing in Scotland at that time which provides a context to some of the minutiae contained in the Anderson archives.

One point which emerges clearly from an understanding of this part of the Anderson Archives, is that as far as Anderson’s political and aesthetic and literary writings go, there is almost no surviving material on these subjects from

1 Jim Baker has also written an excellent account of John’s intellectual background and development in Scotland. See Baker, A.J. ‘Anderson’s intellectual background and formative influences’ Heraclitus Part I No. 33 Oct. 1993 pp 4-12; Part II No. 34 Jan. 1994 pp 5-8. 2 Series 1 and 2 of the Anderson Archives contains all of Anderson’s remaining material from his Scottish period. Series 2 contains two copies of Anderson’s logic book while Series 1 contains a large amount of miscellaneous material. The only known omission from the Anderson Archives from this time is John’s prize winning essay, ‘Is the State a Moral Agent?’, which Sydney University Archives has recently agreed to acquire from Glasgow University Archives. Series 18 & 23 of the Archives contains the correspondence between John and Jenny. 3 Kennedy, B. A Passion to Oppose MUP, Melbourne, 1996 4 Kennedy op cit pp 22, 35, 37 2 his residence in Scotland. This implies that John’s writings on these subjects during his early years in Sydney (say 1927 to 1931) are the main sources of evidence for inferences about what political and aesthetic views he may have had in Scotland and what cultural influences he may have been exposed to. For example, John’s writings for the theoretical journal of the Communist Party of Australia, The Communist, between 1927 and 1928 must be expressions of the political theory he had formed in Scotland prior to his departure. Similarly, his 1930 paper on ‘Ulysses’ is the earliest paper in existence that deals with James Joyce and the views presented in his many papers on Joyce and other writers and literary themes for the S.U. Literary Society during its early years must have been developed while he was in Scotland. Similarly, the substance of John’s early papers on Freethought must also have been formed in Scotland.

With regard to John’s philosophic writings, there exists a good collection of material in the archives from 1916 to 1926 which enables us to understand his philosophic development clearly. One interesting point of contrast between John’s philosophic work and his more popular contributions to the Glasgow University Magazine (G.U.M.) is that while his surviving philosophical writings from Scotland do not indicate an acceptance of Realism or Empiricism until the early 1920’s, his writings for the G.U.M. suggest a rejection of Idealism from as early as 1916. However before discussing John’s contributions to the G.U.M., it is necessary to dispel a few inaccuracies and judgements which appear in Brian Kennedy’s work A Passion to Oppose. The easiest to refute is Kennedy’s claim that John enrolled in two degrees at Glasgow University.

John Anderson was unusual in doing two honours degrees, not a combined degree, one of them in mathematics and natural philosophy, the other in logic and moral philosophy. After studying first year Greek, Latin and mathematics, he spent three years studying mathematics and natural philosophy, with some laboratory work; and then embarked on another three years of moral philosophy, logic and political economy.1

This statement has puzzled me for many years and so I recently emailed the Archives at Glasgow University for clarification on the issue. The response from the duty archivist was straight-forward. John obtained with only one degree, an M.A. in philosophy, graduating in 1917. She also provided details of his academic transcript. After first year Greek, Latin and Mathematics, he studied four subjects over the next two years: in 2nd year he studied Natural Philosophy (including physical laboratory work) and Mathematics and in 3rd year, Moral Philosophy, Logic, and Natural Philosophy. In his 4th year he did Mathematics (Hons) and Natural Philosophy (higher) and in his final two years he studied Logic, Moral Philosophy and Political Economy. While I cannot claim to know or understand the academic requirements of an M.A. degree in philosophy at Glasgow University at this time, Anderson’s academic transcript appears to be a fairly straight forward record of what we would still recognise today as a standard M.A. degree. After studying compulsory first year subjects, over the next two years he studied Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral Philosophy. In his fourth year, possibly his honours year, he studied honours level Mathematics and Higher Natural Philosophy. The mathematical and scientific orientation of this year did not appear to be a hindrance to his study in his final two years study (his M.A. course work and thesis?) of Moral Philosophy, Logic and Political Economy. If this is a correct understanding of Anderson’s academic progress, then it amply illustrates Davie’s claim about the comprehensive nature of the ‘democratic intellect’ where philosophy was the unifying subject under which all the special subjects could be studied. Mathematics, Natural Philosophy (possibly akin to something like Theoretical Physics or Hegel’s ‘Philosophy of Nature’) and Political Economy could have been special subjects within philosophy which would explain why his fourth year study of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy was followed by two years of study of Logic and Moral Philosophy. On the basis of this evidence, Kennedy’s claims that Anderson took two degrees and studied three years of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy followed by three years of Moral Philosophy and Logic are simply false.

Another claim, where Kennedy is misleading rather than false, occurs in the following statement:

In these circumstances it is useful to employ a distinction between the ‘public’ and the ‘private’ Anderson – the ‘public’ student contending for the glittering prizes and the favour of Sir Henry Jones, and the ‘private’ undergraduate, criticising and challenging the orthodoxies of the day. It is a familiar phenomenon, but in someone as intellectually ambitious and as ambivalent about authority as John Anderson, it is very striking.

1 Kennedy op cit p 35 (his emphasis) 3 For John Anderson, the winner of the university’s prestigious silver medal, the Edward Caird and Thomas Logan prizes, the Ferguson scholarship and the Shaw Fellowship, was also the iconoclastic editor of the Glasgow University Magazine during the war years.1

While there may be some merit in this distinction between a ‘public’ and ‘private’ Anderson, a reasonable interpretation of the above statement to the effect that Anderson was simultaneously the ambitious, prize winning student and also the iconoclastic radical and editor of the G.U.M. (writing under the pseudonym of ‘Jude’) is true but only in a trivial sense. John did contribute stories for the G.U.M. while he was an undergraduate and some of these did extol the virtue of drinking beer (thus placing him in opposition to his professor, Henry Jones) but these only appeared occasionally during his undergraduate degree. More importantly, his editorship of the G.U.M. (when he wrote some of his more openly provocative stories) only occurred after he had graduated with his M.A.. Anderson submitted his final written work for his M.A. in April 1917 but became editor of the G.U.M. at the start of the 1917/18 academic year (probably around September 1917). Hence John would have had no cause for concern for what Professor Jones might have thought of his writings for the G.U.M.. He did, of course, continue using his pseudonym during this time, but that fact is neither remarkable nor startling.

Several years ago when Kennedy’s book first appeared I wrote a review for Heraclitus in which I drew attention to Kennedy’s generally judgemental attitude towards Anderson and particularly his supposed role in contributing to the mental ill-health of the most significant women in John’s life – his mother Eliza, Jenny Baillie, and Ruth Walker.2 While a detailed treatment of this subject (and of the supposed sibling rivalry between John and William) would require more space than I can provide for it at this time, it has been interesting to recently re-read Kennedy’s treatment of Anderson’s Scottish period where this judgemental and negative attitude appears clearly. The most remarkable of his statements is the following in which I cannot, despite my best efforts, logically connect the first sentence with the following question and statement (italics are mine):

Anderson’s favourite maxim, like Marx’s, was Terence’s ‘I am man; nothing human is alien to me’ and he liked to quote Hegel’s dictum that the owl of Minerva or philosophy only emerges at the ‘dusk’ of a great civilisation. Does this suggest a tendency to self-consciousness, self-dramatisation, even self-pity? If it does, it was probably little more than a pose or affectation.3

Why this quoting of Marx and Hegel would suggest self-pity and hence a pose or affectation is an inference I cannot follow, but it is clear that Kennedy has a generally negative view of most aspects of John’s personality. This is further demonstrated over the following fourteen pages, where Kennedy’s portrait of John is consistently negative: he is, at different times, ‘asserting his manhood as a warrior’, a ‘beast’, ‘unscrupulous’, seeking a ‘paragon convert’, and in need of ‘mothering’ (italics in all the quotes remain mine):

Throughout his career, whenever Anderson and the university were assailed by hostile forces, a similar pattern emerged. At Sydney in the fierce public controversies of 1931 over war memorials and free speech, in 1943 over religion and education, and in the Orr case of the 1950’s, Anderson was provoked and antagonised into asserting his manhood as a warrior against the enemy host.4

The several dreams that Jenny supplied to John illuminates the stresses and conflicts of the relationship during these years. One of them was about a bull threatening Jenny in a field. Somehow John had to control and tame the beast, but, simultaneously, John had to master himself, for he was also the beast.5

How near Jenny Baillie came to a nervous breakdown at this point remains a disquieting speculation. As in all intense and intimate relationships, the balance of power and attraction changed over time. Quite early we encounter John’s passionate nature, his ego and will to power, his unrealistic expectations and demands, his

1 Kennedy op cit p 37 2 Weblin, M. ‘A Passion for Thinking?’ Heraclitus 50 1996 3 Kennedy op cit p 42 4 ibid p 45. In none of the incidents listed can Anderson be said to have been ‘provoked or antagonised’ by ‘hostile forces’. 5 ibid p 54 4 need for an exclusive attachment and a certain unscrupulousness, possibly even desperation, in his wooing of Jenny. It was a ‘thrawn’ kind of loving, twisted and conflicted by John’s Pygmalion complex. His desire for the paragon convert and agreement on all fundamentals was almost as strong as the need for a woman to love and marry.1

Tensions with her mother and sister were much exacerbated by John and, in the end, Jenny had to give up the close family circle for John. There was also the transition from the solidarity and bustle of the miner’s cottage and mining village to the lonely elevation of a professor’s pedestal, no matter how respectable. Sadly, this was to be her fate when the Andersons moved to Australia in 1927. Exile merely made explicit what was implicit in the relationship. …At times he needed mothering and perhaps an intellectual helpmeet.2

Why Kennedy needed to attribute such a consistently negative array of emotions to John Anderson is a mystery, but may have to do with the common Australian tendency of ‘cutting down tall poppies’. Aware that he was dealing with a powerful and logical thinker who dominated Australian intellectual life for over thirty years, Kennedy may have felt the need to emphasise John’s feet of clay by making vague moral and psychological judgements about his ‘needs and demands’. While the basis of much of this judgement is derived from the correspondence between John and Jenny, this material is not widely available and so any final conclusions about the factual accuracy of Kennedy’s work must await further research in that field. However John’s contributions to the G.U.M. have been published previously and provide a unique insight into his early intellectual development. Apart from his editorials, all of John’s contributions to the G.U.M. were literary in style and the following brief extracts are intended to give some idea of that style on subjects of general intellectual interest.3 However it is exceedingly difficult, as it is with John’s later writings, to quote briefly from his work and maintain the general meaning of the passage. It would be far more desirable to have the pieces transcribed in full but I do not have the resources to undertake this task.

Certain youthful idealists seek to escape the toils, to evade the spell of the pervading mania. They seek to escape, only to fall into a worse delusion. They worship the all in all, the utterly utter, the unspeakable, the unlimited, the ultimate, the absolute. They are the more deceived, for these are but other names for Pan; they are only idealisations for those who fear the thing himself. It is better to remain chained to the traditional forms, to accept all the paraphernalia which delight the mob, to obey the priests, and even to join in the goat dance. No one can escape; at best we can but know that we are damned, and build on the firm foundation of unyielding despair. Pan is the great god.4

The thought springs to my mind – perhaps we are all ghosts. We seem to be immaterial, unreal. Something is happening somewhere, we know, but what or where is beyond us. Either we are ghosts or we are asleep, and dreaming strange dreams which were better suppressed. (At this point the Censor intervened, and cut it all out down to here.) I have been seeing the lights of other days, and if they are not ghosts, I am one. They seem real enough; they play billiards and knock the balls round the table with astonishing vigour. But perhaps these are not real balls, perhaps it is not a real table, perhaps (awful thought) that is not real billiards. Or perhaps I am merely dreaming and will wake up some day with startling suddenness in a world where there are no spirits. Who knows?5

And the present phase (of the perpetual war between those who admit the separation of self and others and those who do not) is the opposition of the public house and the picture house. These are the rallying grounds of the opposing armies of the wise and the foolish; their names are the passwords, the mystic symbols of the real and the imaginary. The wise man drinks his beer, he absorbs it, he makes it part of himself. He is in the realm, not of the ideal, but of the real, for he knows what he is getting, and he makes sure he gets it. The

1 ibid p 55 2 ibid p 56. Is Kennedy suggesting here that Jenny occupied the ‘professor’s pedestal’? 3 It should be noted that all of the following extracts occur in the 1917/18 academic year i.e. after John’s graduation with M.A.. Photocopies of all of this material was reproduced in ‘JA’ No. 10 (Feb 2004). There is a collection of the relevant copies of the G.U.M. in the Anderson Library. There is also a typed list of Anderson’s contributions to the magazine in the Anderson Archives although the list appears to be incomplete. 4 ‘Goats’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 5 ‘Ghosts’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 5 foolish youth gazes at the pictures, and thinks he is sharing a pleasure with his fair companions, that he is taking part in a joint experience. He deceives himself, for he can only experience things for himself. He is an Idealist, and he is deservedly damned.1

What one man drinks another does not drink. That is a thing which not even an idealist reformer can deny, and that is why he hates the abode of booze, and tries to destroy it. And it may be that he may succeed in destroying it. But something else will come to take its place. For truth springs eternal in the human breast, and a new symbol of reality will surely be found. Even the reformer cannot get away from the fact, though he dislikes the symbol.2

If you know what a man is sentimental about, and in what degrees, you can tell quite accurately what manner of man he is. And in particular music hall songs have this advantage, that they are concerned with wishes. They all describe what we are ‘longing for’ or ‘want to see’. And thus they are the clue to analysis of the social mind. We make this suggestion to Herr Freud entirely free of charge. Or, if the music halls of Vienna are closed owing to the war, we offer it to any of his disciples, in pure zeal for the sacred cause of science.3

At one moment we seem to be doing all the getting, and, again doing all the giving. Thus there are two deities who rule the destinies of men: the one beneficent, granting favours beyond our deserving, the other malignant, depriving us of our due reward. And the former god-like form is Luck, while the foul demon is Spite. These act together, the one compensating for the other, and they fill the whole of life. Yet on different persons they act differently: one man is born beneath a lucky star, another has his days clouded by mischance. For what is one man’s good fortune is another’s despite.4

One particular point of interest from this material is that while there is no evidence that I know of to show that John adhered to a Realist or Empiricist position until the early 1920’s, if we take the above quote from ‘Goats’ literally – the worship of the all in all, etc. – then quite clearly he had rejected Idealism in some sense as early as late 1917. However earlier that year, he had been quite clear in his rejection of the ‘radical empiricism’ of William James, and so perhaps there is some merit in Kennedy’s distinction between John’s ‘public’ and ‘private’ personas after all.

On the basis of the material reproduced and commented on here, I believe that it is clear that Anderson’s Scottish period writings are an important source for research not only on Anderson’s own intellectual development, but also on the general social and cultural conditions existing in Scotland at that time. It is my view, on a fair and reasonable interpretation of the Anderson Bequest, that Sydney University would transcribe a selection of Anderson’s Scottish writings into electronic format for placing on the Anderson Web Site and subsequent publication.

The Democratic Intellect

John Anderson was the third born, and second son, of the marriage of Alexander Anderson and Elizabeth Brown.1 Alexander Anderson was born in 1863 at Aberlady on the Firth of Forth, about twenty miles to the east of Edinburgh. His parents were elderly and his father, William, tended sheep on the Lammermoor Hills while his mother was always ready to lend a hand at the ‘big house’ on the estate when extra help was needed. When Alexander was of school age he walked the four miles to the school in the tiny village of Oxton and during these long walks he learnt the multiplication tables far beyond the ‘twelve times’, then turned to division, and when bored with that, turned to squares, cubes and their accompanying roots. It is possible, as Jenny Anderson suggests, that the people in the ‘big house’ realised they had a scholar on their hands and fostered his development, for in 1880 he was apprenticed as a pupil-teacher at Channelkirk Public School and in 1881 entered the Church of Scotland Training College at Edinburgh. In 1884 he entered Edinburgh University where he soon excelled, winning first prize in Senior Mathematics in 1885

1 ‘Two Houses’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 2 ‘Two Houses’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 The ‘idealist reformer’ is probably Henry Jones. 3 ‘The Cult of Immaturity’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 The reference to Freud here clearly indicates John’s understanding of the general psycho-analytic theory at this time. 4 ‘Double or quits’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 6 and second prize in 1886.2 He also won second prize in Natural Philosophy in 1885 and second prize Moral Philosophy in the same year.

Alexander graduated in 1887 and taught at Stenton Public School in East Lothian. It was here that he met Elizabeth Brown who had spent her childhood in Fauldhouse, East Lothian. She came from a large family, being the eldest of five siblings, and after completing her teacher training at Glasgow Normal School, taught for some years. Elizabeth, or Eliza as she liked to be known, was a cultured woman, being both a keen pianist and gardener and in 1918 contributed a poem on the impending defeat of Germany to Orage's The New Age. On December 31st, 1888, Alexander and Elizabeth married and soon moved to Port Logan where Alexander taught at the Northern Public School. Their first child, William, was born in 1889, followed by Katherine in 1892 (?), John in 1893 and Helen in 1897. Willie and Kate resembled their mother with their pale complexion, fair hair and grey-blue eyes. John and Helen resembled their father with dark hair and dark eyes. Indeed John’s appearance was so striking that his paternal grandmother called him a ‘changeling’. The children attended their father’s school and some, if not all, of them, then studied at Hamilton Academy in north Lanarkshire. John attended the Hamilton Academy between 1907 and 1910 where he studied English, higher mathematics and higher Greek and his early precociousness was evident in the fact that he won first place in the All Scotland Open Bursary Competition in 1911, with his future wife, Janet Ballie, also from Hamilton Academy, coming third.3 The Anderson household was a place where discussion and argument flourished as Jenny Anderson later observed:

I shall never forget the impression they made on me when I first met the members of the family together for the first time. It was as if I had strayed into a novel, where each character had something of interest to contribute to the conversation and where discussion and argument were taken for granted. As one Glasgow lecturer said to me later when I met him in Edinburgh after John and I were married ‘When the Anderson men get together, they metaphorically take their jackets off, and set to’.4

Social and Cultural Conditions

In the decades prior to the Anderson’s arrival in Stonehouse there were various social, political and cultural influences operating in Scotland which would have a lasting impact on the intellectual development of John Anderson. During the last decades of nineteenth century Scotland, there were momentous cultural changes underway which were changing the ways the Scottish people saw themselves. The poverty and hardship in the Scottish coal-fields was leading to an increased need for unionism and political representation for the working class. The insistent political demands of the newly created Scottish Education Department was turning the traditional independent and classical orientation of the Scottish universities to one of subservience, utilitarianism and vocationalism. The clash between these educational and proletarian tensions resulted in an increased demand for education for the working-class and the rapid growth of a number of intellectual journals and magazines. Finally the great flourishing of philosophy in the Scottish universities, and particularly at Glasgow, was nearing its zenith and would soon fall into irreversible decline.

During the latter part of the nineteenth century, conditions in the coal fields of the western coal fields of Scotland, and in Lanarkshire in particular, were abysmal. Safety conditions were non-existent and there was no organised unionism in the region. It was not uncommon for young children as young as ten to work in the mines and in 1877, two hundred miners lost their lives at the Blantyre pit because of poor safety standards. In 1880, the ill-fated ‘tattie strike’ at the Lanarkshire mines ran its course5 and by 1887 poverty and economic distress was common amongst the miners of the region. When Alexander Anderson arrived at Stonehouse he would quickly have become aware of the difficult economic conditions of the families of his students. Jenny Baillie’s father was one of many coal miners who developed the ‘black spit’ which prevented him from working any longer. One of those young children who worked in the coal mines was Keir Hardie.6 Born in 1856 in Lanarkshire, Keir Hardie had a difficult childhood, having to work from the age of eight and went down the coal mines for the first time at the age of ten, where he would remain until he was twenty three years of age. He attended night-school where he learnt to read and write and in 1878 he became involved in trade-unionism for the first time when he became the agent in the Hamilton district of the Lanarkshire Miners Union. He also worked as a journalist until 1886 when he accepted the post of secretary for the Ayrshire Miners Union and began to campaign vigorously for miners’ conditions. In 1888, Keir Hardie was approached by H.H. Champion, a leader of the Social Democratic Federation, to stand for the up-coming by-election for the seat of 7 Mid-Lanark and brought in a young radical from London, Tom Mann, to co-ordinate his election campaign.7 Keir Hardie’s candidature was unusual in that he was one of the first members of the working class to stand for parliament in Scotland and although he was personally sympathetic with the policies of the Liberal Party under Gladstone, he stood as a working-class candidate and quickly attracted national media attention. In the election, Keir Hardie only gained 8% of the vote although the more positive outcome was the creation of the Scottish Labour Party with Keir Hardie as its secretary. Hardie now began to broaden his political horizon and in 1889 he attended the Second International in Paris.

In 1892, the year Alexander Anderson and his family arrived in Stonehouse, Hardie was elected as the member for West Ham in London and a central plank in his ‘radical’ programme was the pursuit of the eight-hour day. Alexander Anderson would have been aware of Keir Hardie’s policies and of the terrible condition in the mines around Lanarkshire. In 1893, Keir Hardie was instrumental in the establishment of the Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.) and in 1894 he was elected president of the I.L.P. and remained so for another six years. Given Hardie’s origins in Lanarkshire and his radical political message, it is not surprising that Alexander Anderson became an active member in the ILP and would regularly address local meetings on the policies of the I.L.P.. After 1917, Alexander had a portrait of Lenin on his mantelpiece and in his old age was known as ‘old Trotsky’. Clearly he had radical political tendencies and came to this position during the 1890’s when both William and John were young children. This must have imprinted strongly on the two boys and it is not surprising that one of the first public addresses John gave was on ‘Socialist Propaganda’ or that he later owned a copy of the constitution of the Communist Party of Great Britain.

Another important cultural influence at this time was the reform of the Scottish educational system. From the time of the Reformation, Scotland had aspired to a democratic system of education which would expose the whole population to a basic level of literacy and numeracy and provide educational opportunities for the best students. The educational ideal behind the Scottish Arts curriculum was that “..the faculties of a students’ mind should be exercised over a diversity of subjects so chosen so as to secure that on the conclusion of his University course the whole field of human thought and knowledge should lie open to the graduate”.8 The central characteristic of the Scottish university education has been described as the ‘democratic intellect’ which was a tradition which stressed an intellectualism in education, fostered by the democratic nature of student participation within the classes, guided by the Professor and his staff.9 Central to this ideal was the fundamental place philosophy played in university study. At that time, it was compulsory for any student entering a Scottish university to study philosophy and while in some quarters this was a study of Scottish philosophy (or, as Anderson may have put it, ‘philosophy in Scotland’) – Reid, Hume, Ferrier, etc – in other quarters, it was the study of some of the best philosophy in Europe at that time. Alexander Anderson was a typical product of the ‘democratic intellect’. From humble beginnings, he entered Edinburgh University through the Church of Scotland Training School and achieved academic distinction in a number of areas in philosophy. However further academic advancement does not appear to have been an option for him and he took to school-teaching.

However during the 1880’s a ‘crisis’ of the democratic intellect began to take place with the passing of the Scottish Education Act in 1872, the establishment of the Scottish Education Department (S.E.D.) in 1885, and the Carnegie donation which facilitated the plans of the Education department.10 These were the first steps of increased government control not only over primary and secondary education, but ultimately over the universities themselves. With the creation of the S.E.D., the ethos of the ‘democratic intellect’ within the university was overthrown and in its drive to ‘modernise’ university education, a series of organisational arrangements were instituted which lowered educational standards and allowed many unfit students to enter the university. By 1908, the S.E.D. had completed its ‘reforms’, overthrowing the traditional generalist orientation of the Scottish universities and making them centres of specialisation. This was particularly the case at Edinburgh where students who aspired to be teachers were allowed to substitute classes in the theory of education instead of philosophy. The philosophy classes quickly emptied, attracted in large part to the new Professor of Education, Darroch, who had recently arrived from America laden with the latest learning theories from behaviourists such as Thorndike.

John and William Anderson do not appear to have been typical products of the reformed university system. If the relaxing of educational standards in the secondary system or the university in any way benefited them, there is no evidence that it did so. They did not enter into teaching but pursued successful academic careers as philosophers. John in particular embodied the generalist tradition of the democratic intellect rather than the specialist and vocationalist 8 orientation of the ‘crisis’ of the democratic intellect. Like his brother, John attended his father’s school at Stonehouse before attending the nearby Hamilton Academy. The pictures of John which survive from that period show a serious and studious child who rarely smiled for the camera. It is not unreasonable to suppose, given the later academic success of both the sons, that Alexander Anderson drove his children to academic excellence, partially by a strict approach to study, but also by an infectious curiosity about the natural world, and a sense of the political inequality and injustice concerning the social world.11 Willie, some four years John’s senior, came nineteenth in the All Scotland Bursary Competition and entered Glasgow University in 1907.12 When John sat the same exam in 1911 he came first and there is some suggestion of an academic rivalry between the two boys.

If radical politics and a passion for education were two strong interests of the Anderson family, there is a third that played an important role later: an interest in literary and cultural criticism, as exemplified by the journal edited by Orage, The New Age. John himself described the period 1909 to 1919 as the ‘palmy days’ of The New Age for its all- round cultural criticism and its emphasis on the ‘unity of culture’.13 He also praised Orage’s standpoint of ‘universal criticism’ as the great mark of his editorship, and his conception of a free press not tied to the requirements of any vested interests. It was in The New Age that Arnold Bennet’s ‘Books and Persons’ column could be read, or the writings of A.E. Randall, the first New Age writer to show an appreciation of the work of Freud. Beatrice Hastings contributed her ‘Impressions of Paris’ while J.M. Kennedy wrote on foreign affairs. John was also appreciative of Ezra Pound’s notes on music and poetry. “The New Age in its great period”, he later wrote, “remains a source of stimulation for the student of culture, a mine from which material of the greatest value to scholarship can still be extracted.”14 The New Age also had particular personal interest for his mother had a poem published in the journal and Mathew Robieson had several reviews published in it also. The only piece John had published was a letter he wrote in support of Alexander in 1921.

However Anderson’s literary interest was not circumscribed by The New Age, for we know that he gave addresses on Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean and the works of Kenneth Grahame in 1920 and that he was also have familiar with a wide range of other writers. He was dismissive of the more mediocre nineteenth century writers such as Kipling, Dickens and Thackeray, showed some interest in H.G. Wells and G.B. Shaw, but was most critically appreciative of the works of Dosteovsky, Herman Melville, George Meredith, James Joyce, and Thomas Love Peacock. We know also that he was fond of the work of Thomas Hardy, although he never wrote on him. He was familiar with the work of E.E. Cummings and, in his discussion of The Enormous Room, he made reference to other first world war writers such as Stefan Zweig, Robert Graves and F.A. Voigt.15 He was also familiar with a range of poets including Wordsworth, Keats, Browning, Byron, Tennyson, Shelley and Coleridge, as well as a number of other English writers including Chaucer, Shakespeare, Swift, Milton, George Eliot, D. H. Lawrence, and Katherine Mansfield. He also had read many of the nineteenth century Russian writers, had read widely in the detective story genre, and knew the work of the classical writers such as Homer and Virgil.16 Nor would he let the religion of Catholic writers prevent his appreciation of their work as evidenced in his appreciative views on R.H. Benson.17

Another important journal in the Anderson household at this time, although there is no concrete evidence to support this claim, must have been The Freethinker. This journal had been founded by G.W. Foote in 1881 and in 1899 the Rationalist Press Association was formed and its honorary associates included Sigmund Freud, Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Arnold Bennett, Somerset Maugham and many other leading thinkers of the time.18 The journal continued well into the twentieth century and even contained a piece on John’s 1931 ‘war idols’ dispute.19 Even though the journal is never mentioned by John as an important influence (as The New Age was), his conception of Freethought was remarkably well advanced by his second year in Sydney and The Freethinker is the only possible contemporary source that this could have derived from.

The final influence shared by the men of the Anderson family was that of philosophy. The father and two sons excelled in this subject above all else (with perhaps the possible exception of mathematics) and philosophical discussion must have been a staple at the Anderson dinner table. Philosophy in Scotland at the end of the nineteenth century was a philosophy divided between a treatment of philosophy along national lines and a treatment which transcended national boundaries and contributed to the development of philosophy itself. At Edinburgh, there was a tradition, established by Sir William Hamilton and following him, A.C. Fraser and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison, which concentrated on historical studies in philosophy. Hence Hamilton was one of the first British philosophers to 9 read Kant seriously, while Fraser was responsible for ‘re-discovering’ Berkeley and Seth Pringle-Pattison produced several works on Personal Idealism and of the historical development of Idealism. This historical orientation at Edinburgh led to the study of ‘Scottish Philosophy’ as a subject and Pringle-Pattison even published a work under that title. Further, a student of his, Henry Laurie, the first professor of philosophy appointed in Australia, wrote a book titled The Development of Scottish Philosophy. However Norman Kemp-Smith’s appointment in 1919 signalled a decisive shift away from the Personal Idealism of his predecessors.

In contrast, at Glasgow and St. Andrews, philosophy was conducted at an exceptionally high level with such books published as Burnet’s Early Greek Philosophy, Latta on Logic, MacDougall’s Social Psychology, and Jones’ many works on Idealism, including his 1908 lectures at Sydney University, Idealism as a Practical Creed. Glasgow had been the centre of Hegelian studies in Britain since the appointment of John Caird as principal of the University and his brother Edward as Professor of Philosophy. Edward Caird dominated the Scottish school of Hegelianism until his move to Oxford in 1893, a year which in many ways can be regarded as the culmination of Scottish Hegelianism, for apart from Caird's own succession to Jowett's position of Master of Balliol College, there was also the publication in that year of his The Evolution of Natural Religion, MacKenzie's Manual of Ethics and Bonar's Philosophy and Political Economy.20 Caird's professorship at Glasgow was taken up by Henry Jones, who along with other students of Caird developed the ‘spiritual’ interpretation of Hegel into an explicit ‘Christian’ Idealism.21 C.A. Campbell, Jones’ successor in the Glasgow chair, remained true to the Idealist line, although as the twentieth century obsession with analysis took hold, the old Idealism became increasingly irrelevant, much as it did in Australia. Glasgow Hegelianism was to have a significant influence on the cultural life throughout the Empire with Glasgow students travelling to Canada, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia, to spread the gospel of Hegelianism. At Sydney, Francis Anderson and Mungo MacCallum, amongst many others, could claim to have studied under Caird and telegraphed their best wishes to him when Henry Jones was in Sydney in 1908.

The Undergraduate

When John Anderson first entered Glasgow University in 1911, he enrolled in an Arts degree, studying Greek, Latin and Mathematics.22 In his second year, he continued his study in mathematics and now turned to Natural Philosophy, with April and June being spent in the physical laboratory. He won prizes in both classes. In his third year he had progressed to Higher Natural Philosophy, Logic, and Moral Philosophy, winning a prize and a First Class Certificate of Merit in the Moral Philosophy class and a Certificate of Merit in the Logic class from Professor Latta. In his fourth year he continued with Higher Natural Philosophy and also studied Honours Mathematics, winning the Cunninghame Medal in Mathematics.23 Over the next two years (1915-1917) he studied Logic, Moral Philosophy, and Political Economy and won a First Prize Certificate of Merit in his Logic and Metaphysics class, and the Edward Caird Medal and Prize in his Moral Philosophy class. Between 1915 and 1917, he wrote a large number of essays, many of which still survive. In December 1915, he wrote on Plato’s Phaedo and another on the economic conception of wealth as a practical solution to the dualism of man and nature.24 During 1916, he wrote essays on a variety of topics including Fichte’s Idealism, Berkeley’s theory of matter, the moral doctrine of Spinoza, Bosanquet’s theory of the moral life, the good as pleasure and as duty, Thales, the question of whether relations are qualities, and the self and not-self from the psychological point of view.25

John's personal and intellectual life during this period was apparently stimulated by his relationship with his older brother William and his friend Mathew Robieson who all lived at the University Settlement at 10 Possil St during 1914.26 William had studied philosophy at Glasgow a few years before him (graduating in 1911) and while little is known of his philosophical views at this time, they were probably similar to those outlined in Auckland many decades later. William defined philosophy as a theory of practice, a practice in which wisdom was exemplified. He distinguished philosophy from science and politics, arguing on the one hand that it was absurd to think that science could ever replace philosophy, for that would suppose a whole could be replaced by a part, while on the other hand, he thought the connection between philosophy and politics was intimate and he went so far as to state that philosophy is co-extensive with political theory. William believed that education is primarily a political question and the key issue in this respect was whether true individuality could only be attained by assimilation into a common tradition. Mathew Robieson had also studied philosophy at Glasgow and, like John, had won the university Silver Medal for an essay in Political Science. Robieson also won the 1910 Silver Medal competition with a critical essay on 'Modern Realism' and 10 wrote reviews of ‘Hegelian Politics’, a book on Bosanquet’s political theory by Henry Hobhouse, and ‘I Appeal to Caesar’ by Mrs Hobhouse, wrote a critique of the work of Ramiro de Maeztu, and co-authored with William Anderson a monograph on ‘Some Points in the History of Socialist Theory’. He was appointed lecturer in philosophy at Belfast University in 1917 but died suddenly in 1919.

John’s early interests of politics, literature and education were also evident during his early years at Glasgow University. He was active in the student societies and at the end of 1913 he read a paper on ‘Socialist Propaganda’ to the Dialectic House of Commons meeting. In 1914, he was elected Arts representative to the SRC and contributed occasional material to the Glasgow University Magazine, as he did during the 1916/17 academic year. In one piece, ‘The Evolution of a Literary Artist’, he provided advice for the budding writer:

To all who aspire to follow the path of letters I would, in accordance with my own experience, give this advice. Advance step by step, never be discouraged, but keep alight the spark of divine fire in spite of all the adverse winds that blow. And though all may not attain an equal eminence, it is those who have striven manfully upwards who will have their reward.27

John resided in the Student University Settlement during 1916 and in that year was elected Vice President of the S.R.C.. He also appeared to know J.W. Scott, author of Syndicalism and Realism and a lecturer in the department, and who also attended a discussion group led by Alexander for a small group of students including Anderson. Scott's book had been the subject of critical review by Robieson in The New Age and in 1918 John gave a paper on ‘The Fallacy of Optimism’ to the Glasgow University Philosophical Society when Scott was president.28 William Anderson was called up for military service at the start of 1917 although Robieson and John were both exempted on medical grounds. John's exemption was on the basis of poor eyesight, while Robieson was probably exempted on the basis of a heart condition, a condition which led to his premature death in 1919.

From the start of 1917, Anderson attended the Gifford Lectures given by Samuel Alexander which saw the start of a correspondence between the two men which would last until 1930. Anderson also wrote essays on inference, Kant’s arguments for the existence of God, the pre-Socratics, Alexander, and the pre-suppositions of pluralism which the examiner thought so highly of, that he suggested that Anderson turn the essay into his M.A. thesis.29 Anderson subsequently wrote his M.A. thesis on ‘The Philosophical Presuppositions of William James’.30 For the moral philosophy prize Anderson contributed an essay on ‘Is the State a Moral Agent?’ in which he appeared to defend an Idealist theory of the State.

The State, like the individual, has its ‘hazards and hardships’. But has it that ‘stability and security’ which the individual finds in religion, according to Bosanquet, or which we may say he finds in the achievements of Absolute Spirit, Art, Religion and Philosophy? This achievement may be represented as an end of all action, for it is not itself action but something attained through it. Just as the subjective mind of the individual would be meaningless without its objectification in society, so the social system of individuals and institutions only takes its meaning from the achievements of spirit in and through it. The action of the State has its full meaning only within that system and consequently only in relation to that end.31

On the face of it, it appears that John’s political views had changed radically since his 1915 address on Socialism. It is difficult to reconcile the radicalism of Socialism with the conservatism of the Idealist theory of the State, where ‘every man has his station’. But perhaps, as Kennedy suggests, Anderson was serving to his professor what he wanted to hear. In 1917, John had written to Jenny “…castigating idealists as ‘state mongers’ – ‘the good of the State is one’s own good. Prussianism! The Servile State! It is a sign of the times’.”32

The Lecturer

As a result of his academic labours, John Anderson graduated with his M.A. in 1917 and was awarded the University Silver Medal for an essay in Political Science and the Caird Medal and First Prize in the Honours Class of Moral Philosophy.33 He was also awarded the Logan Medal for the most distinguished graduate in Arts for 1917 and won the James Ferguson Bursary which enabled him to give assistance in the work of the Moral Philosophy Department at 11 Glasgow from October 1917 to May 1918. On 24th January 1918, John gave a paper to the Fabian Society on ‘The International’ and on 19th February he gave a paper on ‘The Fallacy of Optimism’ to the Philosophical Society.34 Other addresses from this time include ‘Original Sin’, ‘Personality and Freedom of the Will’ and ‘Is Progress an Illusion’.35 During the early months of 1918, he also attended the second set of Gifford lectures on ‘Space, Time and Deity’ by Alexander. However the events in Russia in November in 1917 must have had a significant effect on Anderson. Between 1917 and 1920, he wrote notes on various political topics including Sorel, Communism, Industrial Unrest, Inequality of Income, the ‘Theory of the Producer’, the dark side of the Industrial Revolution, ‘The Advance to Socialism’, and various pieces on economic, social and political theory. He also copied out the constitution of the Communist Party of Great Britain, indicating a general interest in Communism itself,36

During 1917 and 1918, he was also editor of the Glasgow University Magazine (G.U.M.) and in December 1917, it was reported in the magazine that Anderson, as the editor, had his hair cut on the 25th November (clearly an event of some significance) and since woman have joined the staff of the magazine, he now shaved regularly every Monday morning. He also contributed much of the copy for the magazine and in one editorial on ‘The Decay of Institutions’ he stated views on the university which are remarkably similar to those he made in his later career in Sydney:

It is inevitable that the spirit which animates any institution should become enfeebled when that institution is losing its distinctive character and becoming a mere means to something else. And that is the direction in which the University has been moving for many years. Instead of the disinterested devotion to science which ought to characterise it, which provides it with a value of its own, and which is at once the source and the bond of connection of all the other elements of University life, we have the commercial spirit, reducing the institution to a mere machine for turning out professional men. Instead of students we have teachers, doctors, etc., ‘in training’. And signs are not wanting that there will be a still stronger movement in the near future towards the thorough commercialising of the University, placing it under State regulation, and subordinating to some misty ideal called ‘the needs of the community’. The University is itself a community, with its own needs and purposes, which are not lightly to be set aside. It must be co-ordinated with other institutions, but not in such a way that it will lose its own free and independent spirit.37

In another piece he criticised the ‘simple life’ and the supposed freedom of those people cut adrift from traditions in America and the colonies of the Empire:

The ‘simple life’ is an ideal with which one cannot but feel a certain sympathy, but its advocates are for the most part superficial critics of our present state. We are frequently told, for example, to look at the rising nations of the world, the new countries where life is at once more simple and more real than ours, where energy and initiative are the rule, as they are the exception among our decadent selves. But when we look what do we find? Simplicity of a sort, no doubt; but its true name is brutality, and it is conjoined with a certain low cunning which we hope will never be prevalent in our society. The great Republic of America, our own promising colonies, are examples of the degradation, rather than the purging of humanity, as all may see who come into contact with any of those brazen-faced, upstart, second-hand imitations of mankind. They are cunning enough in their own stupid affairs, but they represent a low type of intelligence, which we pray may not infect us with its proximity. They keep informing us that, as compared to them, they are free, not trammelled by a set of foolish and unmeaning conventions, but living as man was intended to live, by the exercise of his wits on their surroundings. Efficiency is their motto; struggle and survival are the elements of their life. In short, they have degraded themselves below the human level to that of brutes, and their intelligence is of a corresponding kind.38

It is remarkable that in the exact years that the ‘crisis’ of the democratic intellect was occurring, neither John nor William Anderson, nor Mathew Robieson, had anything to say on the issue, although one contributor to the G.U.M. under Anderson’s editorship, ‘Cham’, did provide an amusing analysis of the emerging commercial pressures on the various university professors to recruit fee-paying students: 12 The Professor of Education showed a large poster, on which was a figure of a man with intense and threatening gaze, pointing a pistolic finger at the unoffending passer-by, with the legend –

YOU NEED ME

Would you have your sons unworthy of you?

Would you have the business you have built up by years of strenuous effort destroyed in a day by a spend-thrift son?

LEARN TO EDUCATE YOUR CHILD

EDUCATION WILL HELP YOU AVOID DISASTER The Professor of Geography, who had spent all his life exploring in the wilds of Africa, and was unaccustomed to modern methods, was not so arresting. His bill ran –

Would you be a stockbroker? Knowledge is Power. Learn to control the world’s markets. Prediction means success. Learn to know the world’s climates. WE WILL TEACH YOU

The Professor of Law, well acquainted with the weakness of men, announced merely

BE ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE LAW

Outside the portal consecrated to Logic was the notice –

What made Sherlock Holmes great above his fellows? HE KNEW LOGIC

Why was Rockefeller the greatest financier of his time? He was not afraid of his reasoning powers. HE KNEW LOGIC

COME TO LOGIC Logic means System, Organisation, Order.

SYSTEM IS THE SECRET OF SUCCESS COME TO LOGIC

The Professor of Greek, versed in the wisdom of ages, made a deeper appeal. His bill ran -

Do you wish to succeed?

WE HAVE NOTHING FOR YOU

But we guarantee to teach you more Greek in less time than any other institution in the country. 13

From the middle of 1918, John gave assistance to Hector Hetherington at the Philosophy Department at Cardiff and lectured to Intermediate and Ordinary classes. He also lectured to adult classes on economics at Neath, Port Talbot and Blackwood.39 Many of his lectures from this period survive and include his lectures on ‘Economics and Social Theory’, which have a special reference to Marshall’s Principles of Economics.40 After completing this contract at Wales, John was re-employed for the first term as head of the department while Professor Hetherington was in America on sabbatical and, apart from lecturing on philosophy at Cardiff, he taught the adult W.E.A. class in social science at Newport.41 After completing his employment at Cardiff, Anderson returned to Glasgow at the beginning of 1920 where he lectured to the Ordinary, Higher Ordinary and Honours Logic classes. In December 1919, he won the Shaw Philosophical Fellowship for which he was obliged to present a series of public lectures on the nature of mind. At this time, he was also appointed lecturer in the Department of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh.

John commenced work at Edinburgh University in October 1920 and over the next six years he lectured ordinary, intermediate and honours students in logic and metaphysics. John worked closely with the two professors – Norman Kemp Smith and A.E. Taylor – providing detailed commentary on Kemp Smith’s Prolegomena and Taylor’s work on Plato.42 John’s immediate responsibility at Edinburgh was to give lectures in economics but over the next three years he lectured extensively on modern philosophy with particular reference to Berkeley, Leibniz and Hegel.43 It was probably at this time that he wrote ‘Some Problems of Positive Philosophy’ and ‘Philosophical Theories’, two unpublished outlines of his early philosophical views where he clearly articulates his acceptance of Realist philosophy. While both of these outlines clearly articulate Anderson’s Realism and Positivism, one feature of both papers is Anderson’s insistence on philosophy as a systematic enterprise and this is one key aspect of his youthful adherence to Idealism which he carried over into his mature philosophical views.

One important aspect in Anderson’s personal life at this time was his marriage to Janet (Jenny) Baillie in 1922. John had known Jenny at Hamilton Academy but had lost touch with her when he went to University and she to train as a teacher. However in 1916, they commenced a correspondence which would lead eventually lead to their marriage on June 30, 1922.44 The photo’s of their honeymoon and the subsequent period show John at his happiest. The solemn seriousness of his youth is gone. The joy John appeared to feel after his marriage continued with the birth of their only child, Alexander, in 1923. The photo’s of John and Sandy in the years following his birth show a happy and doting father. John’s marriage to Jenny had some interesting parallels to his parent’s own marriage. Both John and his father had passionate interests in philosophy, education, and radical politics and both men married teachers who had literary interests. His mother taught for a while before her marriage, was a keen pianist and had a poem published in Orage’s The New Age. Jenny also taught for a number of years and was interested in Ibsen and introduced John to his writings.

There is little record of Anderson’s lectures during 1923, although in August he was pre-occupied with the subject of psycho-analysis with over forty pages of dream analysis and word association written for this month alone. At the start of 1925, he delivered his Shaw Fellowship Lectures on the Nature of Mind and in 1926, he published ‘Propositions and Judgements’ and ‘The Truth of Propositions’ in Mind. In September, he submitted his application for the position of professor at Sydney with supporting testimonials from Kemp Smith, Taylor, Alexander and Stout. In December he submitted his final proofs for ‘The Knower and the Known’ to The Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Shortly after, John and his young family left Scotland aboard the Runic. Six weeks later the ship docked at Walsh Bay in Sydney Harbour and so began Anderson’s remarkable professorship at Sydney University.

From Idealist to Realist

In 1893, the year of John Anderson’s birth, the Hegelian Idealist revolution in British philosophy had reached its zenith. F.H. Bradley had just published his magnum opus, Appearance and Reality, Edward Caird published The Evolution of Natural Religion and was appointed Master of Balliol College, J.S. MacKenzie had published his Manual of Ethics, D.G. Ritchie his Darwin and Hegel, and James Bonar his Philosophy and Political Economy , while only a few years earlier Samuel Alexander had published his Moral Order and Progress, which, in the view of one contemporary, was the best example to date of the reconciliation of Darwinian evolutionary theory and Hegelian Idealism.1 However there were significant differences within the Idealist movement, with the ‘block universe’ of 14 Bradley at Oxford being strongly opposed by the Glasgow Hegelians with their conception of a ‘dynamic universe’ culminating in God. Caird’s successor in the Glasgow chair, Henry Jones, was particularly critical of Bradley and despite the theological motivations in his own thinking, there was a strong Realist tendency in his philosophy. By the time Anderson entered Glasgow University in 1911, the Realist reaction to Absolute Idealism had begun in earnest. Prompted initially by G.E. Moore’s ‘Refutation of Idealism’ and Bertrand Russell’s Principles of Mathematics, Realists began to emerge in increasing numbers. In 1909, Samuel Alexander wrote the first of several articles defending Realism and in the following year there was a public dispute in the pages of Mind between Bradley and Russell on the question of relations, which, while not resolved with any degree of finality, opened up the whole question of Realism and Idealism in terms of relations. Anderson would have been aware of these disputes, although there is no evidence that he was particularly influenced by them.

A typical Scottish university education at the end of the nineteenth century was meant to foster a theoretical and philosophical appreciation of the widest possible range of subjects and in Anderson’s case this was even more particularly the case. During his period of study in philosophy at Glasgow University, he studied Latin, Greek, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Moral Philosophy, Logic, and Political Economy. In terms of awards and prizes, he won prizes in first year Latin, Greek and Mathematics, prizes in Natural Philosophy and Mathematics, the Cunninghame Medal in Mathematics, the Caird Medal and first prize in moral philosophy honours class, the university Silver Medal for an essay in political science, and the Logan Medal for the most distinguished Arts graduate of 1917. He also won the Ferguson Scholarship in philosophy in 1917 which enabled him to teach philosophy at Glasgow over the next year and the Shaw Philosophical Fellowship in 1919. In brief, he was probably the most outstanding student of his generation, both in terms of logical rigour and the scope of subjects over which his thinking ranged.

During his entire degree period, Anderson appears to have adhered to the overall tenor and arguments of Idealist philosophy. There are no surviving student essays from Anderson’s early period (1911-1914) although far more public in these early days was his adherence to Socialism, a value probably inherited from his father. As early as 1913, Anderson had read a paper to a student meeting on Socialist propaganda although in his 1916 prize winning essay, ‘The State as a Moral Agent’, Anderson appeared to defend an Idealist interpretation of the State.2 After 1914, Anderson’s essays can, with a few exceptions, be dated fairly precisely. In December 1915, he wrote an essay on Plato’s Phaedo and one on the economic conception of wealth as a practical solution to the dualism of man and nature.3 During 1916, he wrote several essays on a variety of topics including Fichte’s Idealism, Berkeley’s theory of matter, the moral doctrine of Spinoza, Bosanquet’s theory of the moral life, the good as pleasure and as duty, Thales, and the self and not-self from the psychological point of view.4 While these essays have an overall Idealist orientation, they cannot be regarded as evidence of Anderson’s adherence to Idealism. However, in the six-month period from November 1916 to May 1917, there are three essays which clearly indicate his early adherence to Idealism.5 In the first, from November 1916, ‘Are relations qualities?’ Anderson appears to be advancing a fairly conventional Idealism. In this essay, he discussed the conflict between Bradley and Russell on the question of the internality or externality of relations.6 Anderson rejected Russell’s theory of external relations, arguing that it is inconsistent with the notion of ‘a system of systems’, or logic in the Hegelian sense.

In a system, identity in difference is possible. The terms may be something in themselves and also something in relation. For within a system differences are only differences of aspect, the emphasis being laid now on the terms and now on the relations. It is the same with things with properties. ‘Thing’ and ‘property’ are simply different aspects under which we may regard an ‘existent’. Thus, the contradiction disappears in a systematic unity. This system again may require a further system for its completion. The system of all such systems is Logic, in Hegel’s sense. Qualities and relations, then, are interdependent and both depend on the system. Within it they become compatible. And Bradley’s initial argument still holds, that they imply one another. It is impossible to reduce one to the other. If qualities could be reduced to relations, we should be left with relations which related nothing. And if relations could be reduced to qualities, we should be left without connection between the terms.7

However Anderson was also critical of Bradley’s view although he ultimately came down in favour of a general Idealist position. 15 There is, of course, a sense in which relations ‘qualify’ their terms. But in strict language we should say that terms and relations, things and properties, are different aspects of the same reality, and have their truth only within a system, not a system which they ‘compose’ (this is a sum), but a system of identities within difference.

Three months later (after Alexander had just completed his Gifford lectures), Anderson wrote an essay on ‘The Presuppositions of Pluralism’. In this essay he rejected James’ theory of external relations because in his appeal to ‘popular ideas’ to support this view, James is being ‘unphilosophical’. No refutation of Bradley’s views would be possible, argues Anderson, if it did not take account of the ‘universal character’ of things.

For him (James) each thing, each relation, is self-subsisting, simply because it can be treated as a unit in the sense-world. And this is just the view that Bradley is showing to be contradictory. James is thus strictly unphilosophical, he fails to be sufficiently critical, to examine all his assumptions, and this uncritical attitude vitiates his whole philosophy. For example, in his opposition to Bradley with regard to the question of ‘external relations’, whether things must change when their relations to other things change, one would be inclined to support his contention that things need not change in this process, as against Bradley’s view that, in as much as the relation is different, to that extent the things have changed. The latter view certainly seems to contradict our ordinary experience, as in the example which James gives of a book being on or off the table. But no conclusive argument can be drawn from a mere appeal to popular ideas. No refutation of Bradley’s view would be possible, which did not depend on some account of the nature of things, some considerations of their universal character. We might say that the things do not change when their relations change, because already their nature is such as to include the possibility of all the relations into which they may enter.8

Anderson reinforced this criticism of James when he argued that philosophy is precisely concerned with discovering the ‘unity in the changing manifold of experience’ and that pluralism is ‘the absence of philosophy, the failure to philosophise’.

But what James does not seem to see is that the arguments in the concrete cases are wrong, simply because they have not followed the abstract principle, kept to the same ‘respect,’ etc., and that is just why logic is required and not a reason for dispensing with it. In the same way philosophy in general comes precisely to discover the unity in the changing manifold of experience, to correct the errors of uncritical reasoning, to see how change is possible. Bradley shows that empiricism is impossible, that some philosophy is required. But his ‘reality’ is marked by negation, it leaves sensible experience unexplained. But we must criticise in order to build up, we must, with Kant, look for the conditions of experience. We do not deny the manifold content of experience, but endeavour to find the form, the unity, which makes it possible. In this way all philosophy, being an explanation of the manifold, must be, in a sense, monistic. Pluralism is simply the absence of a philosophy, the failure to philosophise.9

However Anderson’s conclusion is not simply that pluralism is not philosophy, but that Bradley’s monism also fails because it cannot explain diversity or ‘manyness’ within a system.

The postulate of radical empiricism that ‘the only things that shall be debatable among philosophers shall be things definable in terms drawn from experience’ would make philosophy impossible. The explanation of experience must be transcendental. And in this we have the reply to the view of reality as changing. It is the presupposition of philosophy that the manifold, the actual, has a basis in reality, which is the one in the many, the permanent in the transient. If reality were changing, then no knowledge would be possible at all. This permanent element is really assumed in our ordinary experience, and has to be brought out by philosophy. Thus every philosophy is prima facie a system. Even pluralism endeavours to be a system, but fails to substantiate itself. On such a basis we cannot find the universal character which we require. The tendency towards unity, which, James claims, is going on in the universe, is altogether insufficient to satisfy the demand for a philosophy. Though different lines of experience come to intersect more and more, they would still be many, divergent, and we should have no more real unity than he had before. Or, if all the lines 16 became eventually one, with no divergence, then no experience would be possible at all. And we can discern no tendency to this sort of unity. Even an abstract monism is more of a philosophy than pluralism, for it is at least attempting to reach a unity. But the two fall together, the one because it does not attempt an explanation, the other because it fails to explain. Only a philosophy which maintains the manyness, and at the same time the universal character of experience is a real explanation of experience. It is the manifold, which we have to account for: but we must account for it, i.e. unify it. Pluralism as a philosophy is self- contradictory.10

It should be noted that the examiner for this essay had high praise for it – “The scrupulous relevancy of all this, the directness with which you go to the salient points in criticism and the absence of all borrowing and padding make it work of highly promising order.” – and suggested that it be developed into an M.A. thesis, which Anderson subsequently did. Alexander completed the first course of his Gifford lectures on 18th February 1917 and in May Anderson submitted his essay on the course on the subject of ‘Space-Time and Consciousness’. It is interesting to note that much of the essay was concerned with an attempt to reconcile Alexander’s conception of Space-Time with Hegel’s notion of the Idea. There is no suggestion here of dissembling on Anderson’s part and in fact the essay can be read as a limited defence of the Hegelian dialectic as the best method of discussing the categories.

We saw that it was important for the significance of Hegel’s doctrine that the categories should really be distinct, and that one should not simply become the next. And this difficulty would be met, if we were to say that the categories did not develop into one another, but were stages in the development of some independent entity. If it is the Idea which is progressively determined by the various categories, the difficulties of Hegel’s position will be reduced, and, moreover, a great resemblance will be established between his philosophy and the philosophy of Space-Time. But such, on a close enough analysis, is just what we find as Hegel’s conception of the dialectic process of thought. It is a process of thought or the Idea, of which the categories may be regarded as stages. Hegel says that the successive categories may be regarded as definitions of the Absolute, which is the Idea in its completion. At least the positive categories may, while the negative or alternate categories are rather to be taken as definitions of the finite. This involves a separation between the infinite and the finite, which is hardly in accord with Hegel’s general position. For Alexander, the categories are ‘differentiations’ of the matrix and thus are applicable only to finite things. On this view the infinite and finite, as matrix and portions of it, are held together in one system; the specific relation of things to the matrix through the categories is shown. But we need not press Hegel’s language too far. The difference may simply be taken as a difference of emphasis. He may consider the categories then as definitions of the Absolute. But this would seem to imply that we get a progressive determination of the Idea through the categories, that it is just a stuff. Hegel, moreover, is in the habit of talking about the ‘thought in things’, which would seem to imply a universal stuff, even if it is regarded as ‘thought’ and primarily mental.11

However Alexander’s conception of Space-Time provides for a more precise basis for the discussion of the categories although Anderson’s conclusion is that Alexander needs to apply the Hegelian dialectic to this conception of Space- Time and show how the categories follow from each other, and that when this is done, his system will be complete.

For Alexander, as we have seen, the categories differ as to simplicity and complexity, through the whole range from being to motion. He might apply the dialectic of Hegel and show how, by reference to Space- Time, the one follows from the other. When he has done that throughout, the connection of his system will be complete.12

Anderson had written to Alexander after the completion of the course and after the submission of this essay he wrote to him again, thus commencing a correspondence which would continue until 1930.13 In this letter, Anderson demonstrated a particularly lucid understanding of Alexander’s philosophy.

One point on which [L.J.] Russell criticised my working out of the connection of space and time on a new basis, with a new definition of irreversibility, was that I did not employ the conception of point-instants. But here, I think, he has failed to see the point of your argument. The first point, as I see it, is that the experience 17 of time as continuous as well as successive implies the concurrent experience of space, and the experience of space as a structure, and not a blank extension, requires the concurrent experience of time. Then you go on to show how this comes about, by means of the repetition of points in time and instants in space. Then finally you show that the two are really one, that space is temporal and time spatial. And to do this you must take each in its separation and show that it has the characters of the other. This may not be an exact statement, but I think it is approximately correct, in accordance with your position. You say, in your comments on my first letter, that the point does not merely represent an instant but is one. That means, I take it, that it is the instant we are talking of, all the time, and not the illustration by means of a point. And therefore I think that your position demands that we should not talk of point-instants in this part of the demonstration.

Following the submission of this essay, Anderson wrote his M.A. thesis on ‘The Philosophical Doctrines of William James’. There is no evidence in this work that Anderson had begun to embrace Realism or Empiricism and in fact Anderson’s conclusion points in the opposite direction:

We have examined, then, James’s empiricist, pluralistic, and humanist views, and considered their various merits and defects. We have seen, finally, that the empirical or pragmatic method can only be justified on a view which is directly opposed to empiricism and pragmatism. And with these views falls pluralism. We may note, in conclusion, that it is the view that Consciousness does not Exist that has put James wrong throughout. For it was from the loss of the distinction of knower and known that the view of verification arose, which led to James’s Phenomenalism, Pluralism and Pragmatism; a great variety of view, all striving to reach the reality which James had destroyed by his theory of ‘pure experience’. …Against James here we must urge his own earlier view of an ‘unmediated dualism of the knower and the known’, if this means, as it appears to do, that the empirical character of consciousness is irreducible to anything else. James’s theory of knowledge, like so many others, finds it easier to explain knowledge, after having explained it away. Yet as against this view, we have to thank James for the demonstration that the most sensational part of the ‘Stream of Consciousness’ is cognitive. Had James followed out fully the effects of that position, he might have arrived at widely different conclusions from those we have discussed.14

Anderson was awarded the Logan Medal as the most distinguished graduate in Arts for 1917 and also won the James Ferguson Bursary which enabled him to be employed to give assistance in the work of the Moral Philosophy Department at Glasgow from October 1917 to May 1918. From the middle of 1918, he gave assistance to the Philosophy Department at Cardiff where he lectured to Intermediate and Ordinary classes. He also lectured to adult classes on economics at Neath, Port Talbot and Blackwood.15 Many of his lectures from this period survive and include his lectures on ‘Economics and Social Theory’ which have a special reference to Marshall’s Principles of Economics.16 After completing this contract in Wales, Anderson was re-employed at Cardiff for the first term as head of the department (while Hetherington was on sabbatical in America) and apart from lecturing on philosophy at Cardiff (Ethics, Logic and Introduction to Philosophical Problems), he also taught the adult class in social science at Newport where he discussed MacDougall’s Social Psychology.17 After this employment at Cardiff, Anderson returned to Glasgow at the beginning of 1920 where he lectured the Ordinary, Higher Ordinary and Honours Logic classes on Berkeley and Psychology.18 In December 1919, Anderson won the Shaw Philosophical Fellowship for which he was obliged to present a series of public lectures on the nature of mind. At the same time, he was appointed as a lecturer in the Department of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh.

John commenced work at Edinburgh University in October 1920 and over the next six years he lectured ordinary, intermediate and honours students in logic and metaphysics. His immediate responsibility was to give lectures in economics although he also gave lectures on Leibniz.19 At the start of 1921 he delivered lectures on Modern Philosophy with particular emphasis on Berkeley, although with some discussion of Descartes and Locke.20 At the end of 1921, he returned to his Leibniz lectures, although he now also gave lectures on Hegel.21 His lectures on Hegel continued into 1922 and at the end of 1922 he lectured on both Leibniz and Hegel. There is little record of Anderson’s lectures during 1923 apart from one reference to a lecture on Socrates in June.22 In September 1923, he was appointed external examiner in philosophy to the University of St. Andrews.23 During 1924 he gave lectures on Socrates and Hegel, although this latter record may be a duplicate of the 1922 lectures.24 Anderson also gave lectures on Modern 18 Realism with particular emphasis on Alexander.25 The earliest public evidence of Anderson’s adherence to Alexander’s philosophy comes in his 1921 letter to The New Age where he defended Alexander from an Idealist critic. Anderson’s defence shows little evidence of explicit adherence to Realism and appears, in the main, to conform to Alexander’s own theory, in particular that ‘Time is the Mind of Space’ and that ‘Motion is the synthesis of Time and Space’. However one important aspect of this letter is the first indication of Anderson’s speculative ability with his taking Alexander’s ‘angels’ (the next evolutionary stage after humanity) to be identical with ‘genius’ and ‘the comic spirit’.

The beings in whom such Spirit actually occurs are described in Professor Alexander’s terminology as ‘angels’… - and I would suggest (though I do not know how far Professor Alexander would agree) that the angelic nature is identical with what we call ‘genius’, and that in its attitude to men it is the comic spirit, which sees how the sentiments which might rise to genius are prevented from doing so by being tied to desire.26

Some time over the next few years, Anderson wrote two important outlines of his own philosophical views – ‘Philosophical Theories’ and ‘Some Problems of Positive Philosophy’ – which clearly testify to his adherence to realism, empiricism and positivism.27 In ‘Some Problems of Positive Philosophy’, Anderson defended a ‘positive’ account of philosophy which he opposed to both comparative or relativistic philosophy and superlative or Idealistic philosophy.28 He defined comparative philosophy as the view that there are no ‘Absolutes’, where philosophic thinking differs to scientific thinking only in terms of degree. Superlative philosophy, on the other hand, was the view that there are ‘Absolutes’, although these ‘Absolutes’ are independent of experience and therefore unhistorical, which implied that philosophic thinking differs from scientific thinking in kind, not degree. Anderson’s positive conception of philosophy was opposed to both of these views in being based of the positive nature of things as they are found in experience and in holding that philosophic thinking differs from scientific thinking only in terms of the comprehensiveness of the treatment of the objects. Philosophy gives ‘definition’ to the sciences and both share the common hypothetical or empirical method, although whereas science is concerned to ‘save’ hypotheses, philosophy is concerned with ‘removing’ hypotheses. These ‘hypotheses’ are continuous with data and are subject to the same conditions of belief or disbelief, for any proposition which can be asserted can also be denied, as all propositions are either true or false.

The main concern of ‘positive philosophy’, then, is to distinguish its distinctive subject matter from those of the sciences and part of the special subject matter of philosophy are the ‘sciences’ of logic, psychology and ethics which deal with truth, mind and goodness.29 Psychology seeks to give an account of mind, not as ‘Absolute’, but as involving certain positive features. The common definitions of mind as ‘behavioural’ or ‘active’ are found to be features of all things, with emotion being the differentia of mind, occurring in the genus or field of instincts. On this account the body is emotionalised, where every emotion will find a bodily expression and every action will arise from emotional conditions. Finally ethics seeks to give a positive account of good and the positive field of goods is that of sentiments, which are a complex of emotions organised with reference to a particular object or class of objects. The differentia of good are those sentiments which are intrinsic or where the sentiment has itself as its own object. The extrinsic conception of sentiments is possessive and is contrasted with the creative conception of intrinsic sentiments. A sentiment is good, in other words, when the motive of an action is identical with its objective. The sentiment of truth, for example, is motivated by the love of truth and has as its object the continuance and communication of this love of truth and there are many such sentiments, including the love of beauty, creation and work, regard for variety, human love, freedom and the comic spirit. Goods then, can communicate and assist each other, with this assistance being the object of education. However ethical study and the independent operation of goods will be opposed to the normative conception of the ‘ought’, where an external standard is applied to ethical actions. Such a conception will be authoritarian and compulsive and will seek to place obstacles in the path of the operation of goodness, such an obstacle taking the form of the ‘right’ or the ‘ought’. Positive philosophy then, seeks to provide the formal solutions for problems and in removing the metaphysical hypotheses which the special sciences generate, philosophy seeks to organise the sciences.

In his other outline, ‘Philosophical Theories’, Anderson begins with a definition of Idealism as “..any theory which sets up an ‘ideal’ or ideals; or, more generally, that attitude of mind which follows after ideals.”30 In contrast Realism will 19 be the theory which “…denies all ideals of this sort; which, in short, maintains that no theory or conception is out of the reach of criticism. The logical difference may be expressed by saying that for realism all things are commensurable, for idealism there are certain ‘standards’ which measure other things but which are not measurable by these things.” However Anderson qualified this view with the rider that since the idealism which Realism is currently opposed to might be better described as subjectivism where the subject or ‘knowing mind’ is the standard by which things are judged, it would be better to call his view positivism:

Positivism takes its stand on the basis of positive science and positive truth i.e. it believes that propositions are precisely what they purport to be (viz. states of affairs) (‘true propositions’, that is to say, the question of error raises further points) and are not representations, more or less ‘adequate’, of something else. In accordance with this view, there are not different orders of reality (‘universes of discourse’, etc.), but only one; there is continuity, which is the condition of commensurability.

This subjective idealism is for Anderson a special form of rationalism for the human reason of Idealism is an inward entity unaffected by impulses or external objects, and that Realism, as the view logically opposed to rationalism, not merely has to assert that there are independent things which affect the mind but must also “…deny the whole essence view and to insist that there are everywhere accidents, interactions (intersections); and thus to set up the positive theory of a variety of entities (independent things) interacting in a common medium (Space and Time).” Any theory which is opposed to Idealism must maintain “…the notions of objective truth and falsity while holding that we can only test beliefs by other beliefs (and not by standards beyond truth and determining truth) but that unless beliefs ‘claim truth’ no test of any kind is possible; and which finally involves the view that all specific beliefs and notions are criticisable; that there is nothing sacred and nothing profane (that there are many real things and truths but not different orders of reality and truth). Such is positive philosophy which claims to be, in fact, philosophy itself.”

While ‘Philosophical Theories’ and ‘Some Problems of Positive Philosophy’ clearly indicate for the first time Anderson’s adherence to those doctrines which would later be said to define that philosophical position known as ‘Andersonianism’, they were not published as a statement of his philosophical position. However the Shaw Lectures, delivered in the Logic classroom at Edinburgh University in February 1925, do present a clear, coherent and public statement of his Realist views on knowledge and the nature of the mind.31 In his first lecture, ‘The Nature of Mind’, Anderson argued that ‘knowledge’ could not in any way be a description of the nature of mind for if knowledge is in fact a relation between two different things, the knower and the known, then, since a thing cannot be constituted by its relations, the mind cannot be properly characterised by the term ‘knowledge’. In an argument familiar to his later students at Sydney, Anderson argued that since the knower is not identical with the known, then neither the ‘idea’ as that which is constituted by being known nor ‘consciousness’ as that which is constituted by knowing, could be said to exist. In his second lecture, ‘Conational Psychology’, Anderson developed the conclusion from his first lecture and argued that since we must reject the doctrine of simple ideas known by a simple consciousness, then we must conclude that mind is “..made up of a variety of complex processes, which were capable of knowing the various complex things in the world, and by the interaction and development of which they came to know more exactly the connection and distinctions among these things.” This is a conational theory of mind although Anderson rejected the behaviourist thesis that human motives are purely biological in nature for such a thesis fails to distinguish man from other organisms. An alternative conational theory is the Freudian theory of the ‘unconscious’ which supposes that there are some mental processes which are repressed by other motives from knowing. On this theory, when people seek to bring about a state of affairs their motive is in a state of tension and when the state of affairs is achieved the tension is discharged. However in other cases, this tension may stimulate other motives which seek to prevent this state of affairs from coming about and in such a case the repressing motives will create a ‘sign’ to act as an object for the original motive to attain. Such signs can form an unconscious ‘language’ as occurs in dreams and ordinary thinking and deliberation.

In his third lecture on ‘The Possibility of Taking Feelings or Emotions as Constituting Mind’, Anderson argued that his previous contention that mind is constituted by a variety of motives did not show what qualities these motives in fact had. Anderson proposes that this quality is in fact feeling or emotion and while he concedes that such a view is unusual and even paradoxical, there is solid psychological evidence that our moods and temperaments have a strong influence on our knowledge, actions and beliefs and further if we accept the previous conclusions that neither knowing 20 nor willing are qualities of our motives, then feeling or emotion is the only alternative left. Anderson rejected MacDougall’s contention that emotions are simple and primitive and argued that all emotions are complex. For example curiosity and fear can be characterised in terms of seeking or avoiding objects and in the case of curiosity, it can provide assistance to, and be assisted by, other emotions which may seek to know a certain object. In the mind then, there will be a complex network of various emotions which variously assist or resist the operation of other emotions. In his final lecture on a scientific theory of mind and morals, Anderson argued that the co-operation between the various emotions constituted a ‘sentiment’ which were a class of emotions “having a common language and leading to a common end”. Such sentiments were to be distinguished from emotions in precisely the same way that society is to be distinguished from a herd – by “differentiation of function within a whole”. Sentiments were at a higher level in the order of existence than emotions just as emotions were at a higher level than merely organic processes. Anderson then considered the question of morals and argued that a particular system of morals was simply an expression of what sentiments a person had. However he argued that ethical questions were at a higher level than the sentiment of obligation and that the motivation to goodness was the result of motives which were good:

We were impelled to good by the existence in us of certain motives whose activity was itself good. Such motives might be described as inspirations. The test of their goodness was precisely that they had no fixed end, but could communicate themselves indefinitely – e.g., as works of poetic inspiration could continue to inspire others. The theory of obligation was an attempt to find certainty in morals. A naturalistic theory held, on the contrary that error was always possible, owing to the complexity and change of things we knew, and a similar association and dissociation of motives in the minds which knew them. But the possibility of error gave us no reason for giving up our definite beliefs, but only for testing them as thoroughly as possible. Thus we could have a scientific theory of mind and morals.

Following these lectures, Anderson returned to his lecturing duties for the remainder of the year, although he also gave a psycho-analytic interpretation of his ‘propositionalism’.32 It is probably at this time that Anderson was completing the writing of his text-book on logic.33 In Chapter One of this work he outlined the general nature of logic:

The study of logic, in short, begins from the fact that we argue with one another, that we agree and disagree. Granted that there are such conditions as persuasion and conviction, doubt and disbelief, what may we conclude regarding the things of which we are convinced or unconvinced? From this point of view the function of logic appears to be to find a common denominator of arguments. And it is of interest to note that this is precisely the method adopted by Socrates (who may therefore be said to have founded logic) in criticism of the science of his day. He proposed to consider things not from the point of view of the things themselves (εργα) but from the point of view of what we say about them (λογοι).34

Earlier, Anderson had provided assistance to Kemp Smith in the writing of his book Prolegomena for a theory of knowledge and had hoped that Kemp Smith would provide the same assistance for his book. However Kemp Smith was not forthcoming with such assistance and Anderson apparently submitted the manuscript to Orage in the hope that he would publish it. Again such assistance was not forthcoming and Anderson shelved any idea of publishing the book. This decision apparently had mixed results for the manuscript was the basis for the logic lectures after he arrived at Sydney, although there is a story that when, in the last year of his life, Anderson took the manuscript from his draw again, the pain he felt at failing to have it published ultimately caused his death. In February 1926, Anderson participated in a debate with R.D. Maclennan on ‘What is Philosophy’ and in April he published ‘Propositions and Judgements’ in Mind which was followed in October with the publication of his ‘The Truth of Propositions’.35 In September, he submitted his application for the position of professor at Sydney with supporting testimonials from Kemp Smith, Taylor, Alexander and G.F. Stout. In December he submitted his final proofs for ‘The Knower and the Known’ to the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. By the time of his departure for Sydney at the start of 1927, John Anderson’s philosophical position had evolved from the Idealism of his undergraduate days to a position which encapsulated Realism, Empiricism and Positivism. He arrived in Sydney with his position fully worked out which he then set before his students and colleagues in a frenzy of philosophic activity.

1 Kennedy, B. A Passion to Oppose MUP, Melbourne, 1996 pp 16 ff. 2 Anderson Archives Series 34 Item 10 21

3 The unique nature of this attainment is evidenced by the fact that no other Scottish philosophy professor of that generation equalled John's achievement. For example A.D. Lindsay, later professor at Oxford and Glasgow, came 4th in 1895, H.J. Paton, also at Oxford and Glasgow, 5th in 1904, Hector Hetherington, later professor at Cardiff and vice-chancellor at Glasgow, 8th in 1905, John's brother William, later professor at Auckland, 19th in 1907 with J. MacMurray, professor at London and Edinburgh, 4th, A. Macbeath, professor at Belfast, 31st, and C.A. Campbell, professor at Glasgow, 59th, in 1909. See Baker, A.J. ‘Anderson’s intellectual background and formative influences’ Heraclitus Part I No. 33 Oct. 1993; Part II No. 34 Jan. 1994. 4 Janet Anderson on the Anderson family Anderson Archives. A margin note at ‘Glasgow lecturer’ reads ‘Leon Russell?’, also known as L.J. Russell. 5 The ‘tattie strike’ was so named because the miners took to picking potatoes (‘tatties’) during the strike period. 6 Morgan, K.O. Keir Hardie: Radical and Socialist Weidenfeld and Nicolson London 1975 7 Both Champion and Mann eventually migrated to Australia. 8 See Kennedy op cit p 17 9 Davie, G. The Democratic Intellect Edinburgh University Press, Edinburgh, 1961. 10 Davie, G. The Crisis in the Democratic Intellect Polygon Press, Edinburgh, 1986 11 Kennedy op cit p 20 12 Kennedy (p 22) quotes Eliza Anderson for the claim that Willie came second in the Bursary Competition but gives no reference, while Baker, apparently working from the actual bursary lists, places him 19th. Given that Kennedy’s quote cannot be attributed, we must accept Baker’s view and conclude that Eliza’s comment, if true, was motivated by some other reason i.e. the suggestion of an intense desire on John’s part to outdo his brother, perhaps to gain his father’s approval or his mother’s affection. 13 Anderson Art and Reality p 241 ff 14 Anderson op cit p 246 15 ‘The Enormous Room’ Art and Reality pp 181-186 16 ‘The Detective Story’ Art and Reality pp 233 - 240 17 ‘R.H. Benson’ Art and Reality pp 227-232. 18 See Robertson, J.M. A History of Freethought in the Nineteenth Century (13 parts) Watts and Co., London, 1929. 19 Anderson Archives Series 11 Item 4 20 Caird, E. The Evolution of Natural Religion, MacKenzie, J. Manual of Ethics, Bonar, J. Philosophy and Political Economy New York Sonnenschein 1893; Ritchie, D.G. Darwin and Hegel London, Sonnenschein & Co., 1893. 21 See, for example, Watson, J. Christianity and Idealism New York, MacMillan, 1896. 22 Glasgow University Archives R3/2/1 23 The Cunninghame Medal was awarded by Professor Gibson, one of the key participants in the Scottish education debates. 24 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 1 and 2. 25 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 34-41 26 For background on William Anderson see Anschutz, R.P. ‘William Anderson’ Australasian Journal of Philosophy Vol 33 No 3 Dec. 1955 and Baker op cit Part 1 pp 8-9. For material by or on Robieson see Anderson Archives Series 1 Item and Baker op cit Part 1 pp 6, 10 – 12, provides a good summary of Robieson’s views. 27 ‘The evolution of a literary artist’ Glasgow University Magazine 1916/7 p 218-220 28 Anderson, J. 'The Fallacy of Optimism' Anderson Archives Series 1 Box 5 Item 45; report published in Glasgow University Magazine. Reprinted in Heraclitus No. 32 Aug. 1993 p 7 29 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 5/7-11 30 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 42-3 31 ‘The State as a Moral Agent’ quoted in Kennedy op cit p 57. Cf “Bosanquet’s View of the Hazards and Hardships of the Moral Life” 7pp 1915-16 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 39 32 Kennedy (op cit p 59) provides these quotes from this letter but gave no reference. 33 ‘Application for Professor of Philosophy, Sydney University’ in Dialectic Vol 30 1987 pp 144-5 34 Anderson Archives ‘The International’ Series 1 Box 1 Item 13. 35 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 45 No’s 2-5. 36 Other undated notes on political issues include: Guilds, “Socialism and Liberalism”, “Government by Force”, “Historical Value”, “Historical Importance”, “Economic Basis of Socialism”, “Reconstruction”, “Socialism—The Theory of the Class War”, “The War and the Status of Women”, History of Economic Doctrines from Sismondi to Rodbertus”, “Lectures on Bosanquet: The Value and Destiny of the Individual” 37 ‘On the Decay of Institutions’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 p 93 38 ‘Oatmeal’ Glasgow University Magazine 1917/8 p 137-8 39 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 16, 18, 44 40 John once remarked that you would never know of the importance of Marshall’s influence on his own work by the published record. 41 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 14, 16,17, 64 42 Kemp Smith recorded his appreciation in the preface to the Prolegomena although Taylor did not record any note in his Plato book. 43 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 20, 21/3, 22, 23, 26 44 The details of this correspondence have not yet been extensively researched although Kennedy gives a brief outline of the courtship and correspondence in Ch 4 of A Passion to Oppose. 1 Ritchie, D. G. op cit pp 66-7 2 Kennedy has argued (p 37) that in terms of Anderson’s political writings, a distinction can be drawn between his ‘private’ Socialist views and his ‘public’ academic views, as outlined in ‘Is the State a Moral Agent’, defending an Idealist view of the state. However even if we grant this assumption, there is no reason to believe that it extended to Anderson’s philosophical views. It cannot be assumed that Anderson arrived at Glasgow with his Realism fully formed and therefore he must have accepted the prevailing Idealism that he was educated in. The question 22

then becomes one of when exactly Anderson first accepted Realism. No doubt he did balance his ‘private’ support for Socialism with his ‘public’ academic writings on Idealist political theory, although perhaps there is not such a great gulf as is supposed, for Anderson’s defence of the Idealist theory of the State as moral agent is not so far removed from his view (expressed at Sydney in 1928) that the State under Communism could also be a ‘moral agent’ for the development of freedom. 3 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 1 and 2. 4 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 34-41 5 Other essays from this six month period include: “Is Immediate Experience Genuine Inference?” 25/1/1917 (12 pp); “Kant’s examination of the arguments for the Existence of God, and his own Ethical Argument” 6/2/1917 (14 pp); “The Relation of Socrates to the Pre-Socratics and the Sophists” 8/5/1917 (29 pp) 6 It must be emphasised that there is no reason to assume that Anderson would have been uncritically defending Bradley’s Idealism. Firstly, Henry Jones was a critic of Bradley’s ‘block universe’ and by implication of his view of internal relations. Secondly, Anderson’s later view in Sydney rejected both the monistic internal relations of Bradley and the atomistic external relations of Russell. The ‘Sydney line’ on monism and atomism, with specific reference to Bradley and Russell, as outlined in Passmore can be found in Contemporary Philosophy in Australia (edited by R. Brown and C.D. Rollins, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1969). For Anderson’s own view on the question in general see ‘Realism and Some of its Critics’ in Studies. 7 ‘Are relations qualities?’ 23/11/16 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 6 8 ‘The Presuppositions of Pluralism’ 26/2/17 his emphasis Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 8 9 loc cit his emphasis 10 loc cit his emphasis 11 ‘Space-Time and Consciousness’ 18/5/17 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 10 his emphasis 12 loc cit his emphasis 13 Anderson Archives Anderson to Alexander 28/3/17, 6/11/17, 6/11/21 (ser 1 it 5) 25/5/17 (ser 5 it 12); Alexander to Anderson 11/2/23 (It 24/7) 24/12/26, 19/1/30 (Ser 21 It 1), reference from Alexander (Series 34 It 10). 14 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 42 15 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 16, 18 16 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 44 17 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 14, 16,17, 64 18 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 21, 61, 63 19 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 20, 22 20 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 21 21 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 23 22 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 28 23 ‘Application for Sydney Chair’ Dialectic Vol 30 1987 pp 144-5 24 Anderson Archives Series 1 Items 26, 28 25 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 25 26 The New Age Reprinted in Space, Time, and the Categories p 204 (his emphasis). Anderson’s argument here can be regarded as the view that ‘the angelic’ can be regarded as a state of mind (a ‘sentiment’) which is not concerned with the desire of things. The angelic, in other words, would be equivalent to the state of disinterestedness. 27 Unfortunately, these outlines cannot be dated with any degree of certainty. “Some Problems’ has a later margin note by Anderson which says ‘1922 – probably later’. It can be noted that there is another margin note in the body of the text where next to the underlined phrase ‘at the root of’ (“..intrinsic sentiments are seen to be at the root of the things we call good.”) Anderson had written ‘tut, tut’ in the margin enclosed by square brackets. Presumably he was commenting on the unconscious intrusion of sexual language into the essay and given that Anderson was married in June 1922, this might explain the dating of the essay to 1922. However the rider ‘probably later’ suggests that when Anderson wrote the margin note (presumably much later in his career) he did not think that his ‘positivism’ could have been sufficiently developed in 1922 to be expressed as unambiguously as it is in this outline. ‘Philosophical Theories’ is also undated and has been attributed with the broad dating of ‘1918-1926’. However given the above comments it seems unlikely, in a piece which is also explicitly realist in its orientation, that it could have been written before 1922 and would appear to be roughly contemporaneous with ‘Some Problems’. It is possible that the realist orientation of ‘Philosophical Theories’ was prompted by Anderson’s 1924 course on Modern Realism delivered at Edinburgh during the month of November. It should be noted that the two other major sets of Anderson’s lectures surviving from this period – on Hegel and Leibniz – both date from the early part of Anderson’s Edinburgh period (Nov 1920 – Oct 1922) and, if the argument advanced above is correct, are unlikely to support Realism. 28 Anderson, J. ‘Some Problems of Positive Philosophy’ reprinted in Dialectic Vol. 30 1987. 29 One obvious omission from this list of the ‘philosophical sciences’ is that of aesthetics as the science of beauty. That Anderson did regard aesthetics as a science is evident from his aesthetic writings and it can be noted that in a 1931 paper he contrasted the Realist way of thinking in aesthetics with the ‘false thinking’ of servility and sentimentality, which he argued could also be expressed as a conflict between ‘positivism’ on the one hand and ‘comparativism’ and ‘superlativism’ on the other. See Anderson Art and Reality p 163 30 ‘Philosophical theories’ Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 48 31 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 27 32 Anderson Archives Series 1 Item 29 33 Anderson Archives Series 2 34 Logic Manuscript Anderson Archives Series 1 p 4. Margin note reference: “cf. Burnet ‘Greek Philosophy from Thales to Plato’; p.162” 35 Anderson appears to have been on friendly terms with Maclennan (also MacLennan or McLennan) for there are three letters in the Anderson Archives from Maclennan dated between 1928 and 1930. Anderson Archives Series 20 (Box 55)