J. J. C. Smart

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J. J. C. Smart bigraphy, stories - Australian philosopher

J. J. C. Smart : biography

16 September 1920 – 06 October 2012

John Jamieson Carswell "Jack" Smart AC (September 16, 1920 – October 6, 2012) was an Australian philosopher and academic who was * Australia. He worked in the fields of metaphysics, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and political philosophy.

Philosophy of mind

Regarding the philosophy of mind, Smart was a physicalist. In the 1950s, he was also one of the originators, with Ullin Place, of the Mind-Brain Identity Theory, which claims that particular states of mind are identical with particular states of the brain. Initially this view was dubbed "Australian materialism" by its detractors, in reference to the stereotype of Australians as down-to-earth and unsophisticated.

Smart’s identity theory dealt with some extremely long-standing objections to physicalism by comparing the mind-brain identity thesis to other identity theses well-known from science, such as the thesis that lightning is an electrical discharge, or that the morning star is the evening star. Although these identity theses give rise to puzzles such as Gottlob Frege’s puzzle of the Morning Star and Evening Star, in the scientific cases, some claim that it would be absurd to reject the identity theses on this ground. Since the puzzles facing physicalism are strictly analogous to the scientific identity theses, it would then also be absurd to reject physicalism on the grounds that it gives rise to these puzzles.

Career

Born in Cambridge, England of Scottish parents, Smart began his education locally, attending The Leys School, a leading independent boarding school. His younger brothers also became professors: Alastair (1922–1992) was Professor of Art History at Nottingham University; Ninian was a professor of Religious Studies and a pioneer in that field. Their father, William Marshall Smart, was John Couch Adams Astronomer at Cambridge University and later Regius Professor of Astronomy at Glasgow. In 1950, W. M. Smart was President of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1946, Jack Smart graduated from the University of Glasgow with an M.A., followed by a B.Phil. from Oxford University in 1948. He then worked as a Junior Research Fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford for two years.

He arrived in Australia in August 1950 to take up the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Adelaide, which he occupied from 1950 until 1972. After twenty-two years in Adelaide, he moved to La Trobe University where he was Reader in Philosophy from 1972-76. He then moved to the Australian National University where he was Professor of Philosophy in the Research School of Social Sciences from 1976 until his retirement in 1985, and where the annual Jack Smart Lecture is held in his honor. Following his retirement he was Emeritus Professor at Monash University.

In 1990 he was awarded the Companion in the General Division of the Order of Australia. In 1991 he was elected to become an honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Oxford University and in 2010, elected to become an honorary Fellow of Queen’s College, Oxford.

At first Smart was a behaviourist before becoming an early proponent of Type Identity Theory.

Ethics

In ethics, Smart was a defender of utilitarianism. Specifically, he defended "extreme", or act utilitarianism, as opposed to "restricted", or rule utilitarianism. The distinction between these two types of ethical theory is explained in his essay Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism.J.J.C. Smart, "", The Philosophical Quarterly, Oct., 1956, pages 344-354, based on a paper read to the Victorian Branch of the Australasian Association of Psychology and Philosophy, Oct. 1955. Smart later stated that he made mistakes in this essay (for example, that probably maximizing benefit is not the same thing as maximizing probable benefit). However, perhaps because of this very fact, that is, perhaps because Smart did not fall prey to what might be called the "philosopher’s disease" of attempting to be obsessively precise, this essay lays out a good clear, readable presentation of act utilitarianism.