Lizzie Susan Stebbing
(1885-1943), PhilosopherSitter in 8 portraits
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1939
NPG x25713
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1939
NPG x25714
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1939
NPG x25715
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1939
NPG x25710
by Howard Coster
half-plate film negative, 1939
NPG x25711
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Peter West
12 May 2021, 14:26
Susan Stebbing (she did not like being called 'Lizzie') was one of the founding figures of the 'analytic' tradition in philosophy. The analytic method was a deliberate attempt to encourage a rigorous approach to reasoning in philosophy (akin to that employed in mathematics or the natural sciences). Most philosophy departments in the UK and USA today are analytic philosophy departments. Yet, today, unlike her male contemporaries (such as Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore), Stebbing is virtually unknown to all but a few specialist scholars. This is despite the fact that she was the first woman in the UK to be appointed to a full professorship in philosophy, and president of both the Aristotelian Society (the UK’s foremost philosophical society) and Humanists UK. She was also a prolific writer and published at least one paper in a major Anglophone philosophy journal every year between 1924 and 1939. Later in her life (in the 1930s) she turned her attention to writing texts for popular audiences. This resulted in two books with the Penguin 'Pelican' series: Philosophy and the Physicists (1937) and Thinking to Some Purpose (1939). The latter, published a year before the Second World War, is described as a 'manual to clear thinking' and was an attempt to promote - and teach - the skills of philosophy to a public audience in the face of threats to democracy across Europe. Her work is increasingly becoming a subject of great interest amongst historians of philosophy.