Dewi Zephaniah Phillips

Template:Short description Template:EngvarB Template:Use dmy dates Dewi Zephaniah Phillips (24 November 1934 – 25 July 2006), was a Welsh philosopher. He was formally known as D. Z. Phillips; he was informally known as Dewi and he was less informally known as DZ.

Phillips was a leading proponent of the Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion.

Early life and education

Phillips was born in Morriston, Swansea, into a Congregational family on 24 November 1934. He was the youngest of the three sons of David and Alice Phillips. He attended the former Swansea Grammar School. Phillips studied philosophy at Swansea University from 1952 to 1958, where his teachers included J. R. Jones, R. F. Holland, Peter Winch, and, most importantly, Rush Rhees. From 1958 to 1961, he then studied at the University of Oxford, where he matriculated at St Catherine's College. While he was at Oxford he undertook a dissertation which Anglican philosopher Michael Foster initially tutored and which Rush Rhees later supervised. In 1965 his dissertation became the source for his first book The Concept of Prayer.

Academic career

Phillips began his academic career in 1961 as an assistant lecturer in philosophy at Queen's College, Dundee. In the following year he became a lecturer. In 1963 he obtained a post as lecturer in philosophy at the University College of North Wales, Bangor.

In 1965 Phillips returned to Swansea University, to take up a lectureship in the Department of Philosophy. He was promoted to a senior lectureship in 1967. In 1971 he became its professor and head of department. He was also Dean of the Faculty of Arts (1982–1985) and Vice-Principal (1989–1992). His research interests included the philosophy of religion, ethics, philosophy and literature, Simone Weil, Søren Kierkegaard, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.

In 1993 Phillips was appointed Danforth Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in California, and thereafter divided his time between Claremont and Swansea where, in 1996, he became the Rush Rhees Professor Emeritus and Director of the Rush Rhees Archives and Peter Winch Archives based in Swansea University.

While at Swansea, Phillips made a substantial contribution to the University's reputation as a centre of Wittgenstein's philosophy, the Swansea School of Philosophy. Scottish Dominican Fergus Kerr noted: 'He became the best known of the "Swansea Wittgensteinians": philosophy understood as a kind of intellectual therapy in dark times rather than constructive theorizing; against prevalent aspirations and practice in the discipline, philosophical work as reminding ourselves of things we may overlook but cannot deny, rather than adding to the sum of knowledge by quasi-scientific discoveries.'

The Swansea school of thought is, perhaps, most thoroughly articulated as a positive research program in Phillips' own book on the subject, "Philosophy's Cool Place" (1999), in which he argues for the merits of "contemplative philosophy." On this view, philosophy is an activity involving both inquiries about reality and elucidations of the various contexts in which people live and speak. In contrast to the New Wittgenstein school of thought, philosophy is not limited to purely "therapeutic" treatments and the removing of philosophical confusion. Here, Phillips is primarily indebted to the work of Rush Rhees. For Phillips, what gives philosophy its unique disciplinary feature is its primary concern with the question of the nature of reality: "How can philosophy give an account of reality which shows that it is necessary to go beyond simply noting differences between various modes of discourse, without invoking a common measure of 'the real' or assuming that all modes of discourse have a common subject, namely, Reality?"

Phillips gave many endowed lectures during his tenure at California's Claremont Graduate University. These included the Cardinal Mercier Lectures (Leuven), Marett Lecture (Oxford), Riddell Lectures (Newcastle), McMartin Lectures (Carleton University, in Ottawa), Hintz Lecture (Tucson), the Aquinas Lecture (Oxford), and Vonhoff Lectures (Groningen).

Cultural commitments

Outside philosophy and academia, Phillips was strongly committed to the Welsh language and the culture of Wales, including drama and poetry. He had books published in Welsh by Welsh pubnlishers and he promoted the use of the Welsh language in local schools. He was instrumental in the founding of the Taliesin Arts Centre on the campus of Swansea University. He was honoured by membership of the Gorsedd Circle of the National Eisteddfod. He was a home supporter of the Swans, the colloquial name by which Swansea City Football Club is universally known.

Personal life

From 1959 until 1961 Phillips was the minister of Fabian's Bay Congregational Church, Swansea where he had begun preaching in his native Welsh in his teens. He was licensed to preach but he was not ordained as a minister, which was his original intention.

In 1959 Phillips married Margaret Monica Hanford with whom he had three sons, Aled, Steffan and Rhys.

Phillips died of a heart attack in Swansea University Library on 25 July 2006. He was 71. From 2001 to 1996, when he retired, he was the Rush Rees Research Professor (Emeritus) at Swansea University. At the time of his death he held the Danforth Chair in Philosophy of Religion at Claremont Graduate University, California.

Published works

Phillips was perhaps best known for his publications in the philosophy of religion. However, he also had published articles in the subjects of ethics, philosophy, literature and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and in Welsh language literature publications. He was editor of the journal Philosophical Investigations, the Swansea Studies in Philosophy and the Claremont Studies in the Philosophy of Religion. A selection of his publications is listed below.

1970s

• With H.O. Mounce.
• With Ilham Dilman.

1990s

• Co-edited with Timothy Tessin.

2000s

• Recovering Religious Concepts
• Religion and the Hermeneutics of Contemplation
• The problem of evil and the problem of God
• Wittgensteinian Fideism? (Co-written with Kai Nielsen)

2010s

• Kant and Kierkegaard on Religion (co-edited with Timothy Tessin)
• Religion and Friendly Fire

External links

• Interview of D.Z. Phillips on YouTube by Steven McMeans in 1995 in Claremont California.