History of the Association

The Mind Association

The Association was established in 1900 on the death of Henry Sidgwick, who had supported Mind financially since 1891 and had suggested that after his death the society should be formed to oversee the journal. Since then, the Mind Association has grown to take on a wider role in the philosophical community. Today, in addition to overseeing the work of the journal, the Association provides funding support c70-80 philosophy conferences annually; offers research funding awards to junior and senior scholars through the Mind Fellowships; and, from 2018, offers an annual Research Studentship award, open to recently awarded or near-completion PhDs. It also co-organises the largest annual philosophical gathering in the UK: The Joint Session of the Mind Association and Aristotelian Society.

The Mind Association Presidency

The presidency of the Association alternates on an annual basis; below are the post-holders from 1945 to the present day:

The Journal, Mind

The original series of MIND ran for fifteen years before G. F. Stout succeeded George Croom Robertson as Editor and began the New Series. Stout (1860-1944) was Editor of MIND from 1891 to 1920. He was reader in mental philosophy at Oxford, before going to St. Andrews in 1903 as Chair of Logic and Metaphysics; his best known books are A Manual of Psychology and Mind and Matter which helped to introduce Brentano’s ideas into English philosophy and to challenge existing conceptions of the mind. He is also well known for his conception of abstract particulars, often now called ‘tropes’.

From 1921 to 1947 MIND was edited by G. E. Moore (1873-1958) whose work affected that of nearly all British philosophers in the interwar years. He was Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge from 1925 until 1939. His most famous book is Principia Ethica, but he is equally well known for papers such as ‘A Defence of Common Sense’ and ‘Proof of an External World’.

In 1947 Moore was succeeded as editor by Gilbert Ryle (1900-1976), who taught at Christ Church, Oxford until World War II and established a reputation for his forceful articles on philosophical logic and method. He returned to Oxford as Waynflete Professor of Logic after the war and published his leading work, The Concept of Mind, in 1949.

David Hamlyn edited MIND from 1972 to 1984. He was Professor of Philosophy at Birkbeck College, London until 1988. He published widely; as well as the Penguin History of Western Philosophy he wrote on Aristotle, Schopenhauer, epistemology and the philosophy of mind, especially perception.

Simon Blackburn edited MIND from 1984 to 1990. He was then Fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford, but left Oxford (and MIND) to become Koury Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He returned to the UK in 2001, and was the Bertrand Russell Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge until 2011. His books include Spreading the Word, Ruling Passions and Think, an introduction to philosophy. His current work focuses on truth and representation.

Mark Sainsbury edited MIND from 1990 until 2000. He was then Stebbing Professor of Philosophy at King’s College, London, having previously taught at Corpus Christi College, Oxford and the University of Essex. He is currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Russell, Paradoxes, Logical Forms, and Departing From Frege and Reference Without Referents.

Mike Martin edited MIND from 2000 until 2005. During this period, he taught at University College London, becoming a Professor there in 2003. He has recently been appointed as Wilde Professor of Mental Philosophy at Oxford and also holds an Adjunct Professorship at UC Berkely. He has published important articles on perception and bodily awareness and is currently completing a book on perception.

From 2005 to 2015, Thomas Baldwin edited MIND. He was Professor of Philosophy at York from 1995 until his retirement in 2014. He is the author of G.E. Moore and Contemporary Philosophy: Philosophy in English since 1945.

Lucy O’Brien and A.W. Moore have been joint editors of MIND since 2015.