W. K. C. Guthrie

William Keith Chambers Guthrie

Guthrie was born on 1 August 1906. Although of longstanding Scottish stock on both his father's and mother's side, Keith Guthrie was born and brought up in London where his father, Charles James Guthrie, pursued a career with the Westminster Bank.

After attending

In 1946 he was promoted to reader before becoming the third Laurence Professor of Ancient Philosophy in 1952, the year in which he became a Fellow of the British Academy. In 1950 he edited an edition of his mentor Cornford's essays under the title The Unwritten Philosophy.

In 1957 he moved to his third Cambridge college when invited to become the master of

In 1956 he was approached by the Syndics of the

As a philosopher, Guthrie followed in the tradition of Francis Macdonald Cornford in believing that ancient philosophers should be read and interpreted against their own historical background, rather than engaged with, as has been the practice of later generations of classical philosophers, in the context of the whole canon of philosophy both ancient and modern.

Guthrie died 17 May 1981.

Works

• Orpheus and Greek Religion (London: Methuen, 1935, revised 1952)
• Aristotle De Caelo (trans., intro., and notes 1939)
• The Greek Philosophers (from
  Thales
  to Aristotle, 1950)
• The Greeks and their Gods (1950)
• The Hub and the Spokes (1953)
• Protagoras and Meno (1956) dialogues of Plato, translator
• In the Beginning: Some Greek Views of the Origins of Life and the Early State of Man (1957)
• On the Heavens, translator (1969)
• Socrates (1971)
• The Pre-Socratics: A Collection of Critical Essays (1974)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume I: The Earlier Presocratics and the
  Pythagoreans
  (1962)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume II: The
  Presocratic Tradition from Parmenides to Democritus
  (1965)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume III: The Fifth-Century Enlightenment – Part 1: The
  Sophists; Part 2: Socrates
  (1971)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume IV: Plato – the Man and his Dialogues: Earlier Period (1975)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume V: The Later Plato and the Academy (1978)
• A History of Greek Philosophy, Volume VI: Aristotle: An Encounter (1981)

References

Sources

• William Keith Chambers Guthrie, 1906–1981 by G. E. R. Lloyd, Proceedings of the British Academy 68, 561–577

External links

• Translated Penguin Book - at Penguin First Editions reference site of early first edition Penguin Books.