Australian Philosophy or Philosohy in Australia?

Abstract

Selwyn Grave must have thought hard before he chose as the title of his admirable book, not A History of Australian Philosophy but A History of Philosophy in Australia. No doubt he had in mind the considerations he begins by emphasising. ‘Philosophy’ he tells us, ‘is not the sort of enterprise for which place and people are significant, as they are for poetry and the novel’. He quotes, in his support, Alan Donagan. Writing a preface to a comparably titled collection of essays Contemporary Philosophy in Australia, Donagan had praised that title on the ground that ‘philosophy is a cosmopolitan subject and its contents are cosmopolitan’. Yet such considerations apparently carried no weight with the authors and editors of such works as Contemporary British Philosophy, Contemporary French Philosophy.