Geoffrey Warnock

Sir Geoffrey James Warnock (16 August 1923 – 8 October 1995)^[1] was an English philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University.^[2] Before his knighthood (in the 1986 New Year Honours), he was commonly known as G. J. Warnock.

Sir Geoffrey Warnock
(c) The Open University 1973
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford
In office 1981–1985
Chancellor	The Earl of Stockton
Preceded by	Sir Rex Richards
Succeeded by	The Lord Neill of Bladen
Personal details
Born	Geoffrey James Warnock (1923-08-16)16 August 1923 Leeds, England
Died	8 October 1995(1995-10-08) (aged 72) Axford, Wiltshire, England
Spouse	Mary Warnock, Baroness Warnock ​ ​ (m. 1949)​
Children	5
Alma mater	Winchester College New College, Oxford
Known for	Philosopher and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University

Life

Warnock was born at Neville House, Chapel Allerton, Leeds, West Yorkshire, to James Warnock (1880–1953), OBE, a general practitioner from Northern Ireland who had been a Captain in the Royal Army Medical Corps,^[3] and Kathleen (née Hall; 1890–1979). The Warnocks later lived at Grade II-listed^[4] Pull Croft, Sutton Courtenay, Oxfordshire (historically Berkshire).^[5][6]

Warnock was educated at Winchester College.^[1] He then served with the Irish Guards until 1945, before entering New College, Oxford, with a deferred classics scholarship. At New College, he read for a degree in PPE, graduating with a first in 1948.^[7] His tutors during his studies included Isaiah Berlin and H. L. A. Hart.^[7]

He was elected to a Fellowship at Magdalen College, Oxford, in 1949. After spending three years at Brasenose College, he returned to Magdalen as a Fellow and tutor in philosophy. In 1970, he was elected to Principal of Hertford College, Oxford (1971–1988), where there is now a society and student house named after him.^[8] He was also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford from 1981 to 1985.^[2]

Warnock, with co-editor J. O. Urmson, prepared for posthumous 1961 publication the Philosophical Papers of their friend, and fellow Oxford linguistic philosopher, J. L. Austin.^[9] Warnock also reconstructed Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (1962) from manuscript notes.^[10]

Warnock married Mary Wilson, a fellow philosopher of St Hugh's College, Oxford, and later Baroness Warnock, in 1949. They had two sons and three daughters.^[11][12] He retired to live near Marlborough, Wiltshire, in 1988 and died of degenerative lung disease in 1995^[13] at Axford in Wiltshire.

Works

Books

• Berkeley, Penguin Books, 1953.

• English Philosophy Since 1900, 1st edition, Oxford University Press, 1958; 2nd edition, Oxford University Press, 1969.
• Contemporary Moral Philosophy (New studies in ethics), Palgrave Macmillan, 1967. ISBN 978-0333048979.
• The Object of Morality, Methuen, 1971. ISBN 0-416-13780-6.
• Morality and Language, Barnes & Noble. 1983
• J. L. Austin (The Arguments of the Philosophers), Routledge, 1989.

Papers

• "The Primacy of Practical Reason". Proceedings of the British Academy 52, 1966 (1967).

For a more complete list of Warnock's works see his PhilPapers entry.