{{Short description|English philosopher and theologian (1917–2011)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}} {{Use British English|date=May 2012}} {{Infobox philosopher | name = Basil George Mitchell | image = | caption = | birth_date = {{birth date|1917|04|09}} | birth_place = | death_date = {{death date and age|2011|06|23|1917|04|09}} | death_place = | nationality = | education = King Edward VI School, Southampton | alma_mater = The Queen's College, Oxford | occupation = | era = 20th-century philosophy | school_tradition = Analytic philosophy, Anglican | institutions = {{ubl|Keble College, Oxford|Oriel College, Oxford}} | main_interests = Philosophy of religion, Ethics, Philosophy of law | notable_ideas = | notable_works = | awards = Fellow of the British Academy (FBA) }} '''Basil George Mitchell''' {{post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} (9 April 1917 – 23 June 2011) was an English philosopher and at one time Nolloth Professor of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion at the University of Oxford. Mitchell argued for the place of religious belief in public debate and criticised liberal humanism.
==Background== Mitchell was the son of George William Mitchell and Mary Mitchell, née Loxston. He was educated at King Edward VI School, Southampton and The Queen's College, Oxford.<ref name="l410">{{cite web | title=Basil Mitchell | website=The Telegraph | date=14 July 2011 | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/8638690/Basil-Mitchell.html | access-date=6 December 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110714215622/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/8638690/Basil-Mitchell.html|archive-date=14 July 2011}}</ref> His father was a disciple of the Sufi mystic Inayat Khan. In 1940, Basil's family put up Khan's widow and children, including the future SOE agent Noor Inayat Khan, in their house in Southampton after the Khans arrived in England fleeing the German occupation of France. Basil was instrumental in introducing Jean Overton Fuller, Noor Inayat Khan's friend and biographer, to Noor.<ref>Jean Overton Fuller, ''Born For Sacrifice '' (Pan Books, 1957), pp. 43, 56-7.</ref>
During World War II, Mitchell served in the Royal Navy from 1940 until 1946. He served primarily as an instructor, in the Mediterranean. In 1950 he married Margaret Eleanor Collin. They had one son and three daughters.<ref>Mitchell's university.[http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/bibliog/bgmindex.htmlhome page.]. Retrieved 29 April 2013.</ref>
==Influence== In 1947, Mitchell embarked on an academic career as a tutor in philosophy at Keble College, Oxford. In 1955 he was elected president of the Oxford Socratic Club, a position he held until 1972 when the club was dissolved. Later, Mitchell was instrumental in creating a new Oxford honours school devoted to philosophy and theology.<ref name="l410"/>
Early books on the philosophy of religion and of law include ''Faith and Logic'' (1957) and the edited anthology ''Law, Morality and Religion in a Secular Society'' (1966), which was a contribution to the debate over law and morality between H. L. A. Hart and Patrick Devlin.
He moved to Oriel College, Oxford in 1968 to take up a university chair. His inaugural lecture, "Neutrality and Commitment", attracted much favourable comment at the time. Later, Mitchell was instrumental in creating a new Oxford honours school devoted to philosophy and theology. Mitchell delivered the 1974–1976 Gifford Lectures at the University of Glasgow entitled ''Morality, Religious and Secular''. ''The Justification of Religious Belief'' (1981), his Sarum Lectures ''Faith and Criticism'' (1992), and a collection of essays called ''How to Play Theological Ping-Pong'' (1993).
Mitchell edited a widely used "Oxford Reading in Philosophy" anthology: ''The Philosophy of Religion''. Mitchell's pamphlet entitled ''Can Social Policy Be Morally Neutral?'' was published by The Social Affairs Unit. He was prominent in the Church of England, and on several of its doctrinal commissions on faith and morals. In 2013, David Brown memorialized him in the ''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy'', XII [https://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/11%20Mitchell.pdf 303–321.]
Two notable contributions to the philosophy of religion were his short essay in the "Theology and Falsification" debate between Antony Flew, R. M. Hare and himself, in which he tried to counter Flew's parable of the "invisible gardener" with his own "parable of the partisan", and his development of a "cumulative-case" method of justifying religious belief, notably in his book ''The Justification of Religious Belief''. Mitchell drew attention to the philosophy of John Henry Newman, notably in casting "doubt upon the credentials of science itself as an avenue to truth". He added: "The paradigm instance of factual knowledge, by comparison with which the claims of religion were thought to be problematic, can no longer be made to serve this purpose." He saw an analogy with "the situation in which Newman found himself as he struggled to analyse the nature of reason and its relation to Christian Faith."<ref>"Newman as a philosopher", I. Ker and A. G. Hill, eds., ''Newman after a hundred years'' (1990), pp. 237 and 238. Quoted in the ODNB entry on Newman: [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20023. Pay-walled. Retrieved 29 April 2013.]</ref>
==Festschrift== Further contributions include an essay on "The Christian Conscience" to the ''Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity''. He wrote an autobiographical essay, "War and Friendship", for the Kelly James Clark anthology, ''Philosophers Who Believe''.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Philosophers who believe : the spiritual journeys of 11 leading thinkers |date=1993 |publisher=InterVarsity Press |others=Clark, Kelly James, 1956- |isbn=9780830815432 |location=Downers Grove, Ill. |oclc=28926479}}</ref> In 2003, he co-wrote ''An Engagement with Plato's Republic'', with his Oxford friend and fellow philosopher J. R. Lucas.
Steven Holtzer and William Abraham co-edited a ''Festschrift'' for him, ''The Rationality of Religious Belief'', which includes an appreciation of his thought and character by Oliver O'Donovan, and an essay on the Eucharist by Michael Dummett.<ref>''The Rationality of Religious Belief: Essays in honour of Basil Mitchell'', William J. Abraham and Steven W. Holtzer, eds, Oxford: Clarendon, 1987 {{ISBN|0198266758}}</ref> In 2009, he published a memoir, ''Looking Back: on Faith, Philosophy and Friends in Oxford''.<ref>Ongar, Essex: Memoir Club, [2009]. {{ISBN|978-1-84104-203-9}}.</ref>
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==External links== *[http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/bibliog/bgmindex.html Personal homepage] at Oxford University (includes a curriculum vitae and complete list of publications) *[https://web.archive.org/web/20160304204027/http://www.britac.ac.uk/fellowship/directory/dec.cfm?member=2287 ''Record''] on the British Academy website *[https://web.archive.org/web/20080621234713/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=123 Basil George Mitchell], notes and biography by Dr Brannon Hancock, plus full text of his ''Morality, Religious and Secular'' on the Gifford Lectures website *David Brown (2013). "[https://www.britac.ac.uk/sites/default/files/11%20Mitchell.pdf Basil George Mitchell, 1917–2011]," ''Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the British Academy'', XII, pp. 303–321
{{s-start}} {{s-aca|en}} {{s-bef|before=Ian Ramsey}} {{s-ttl|title=Nolloth Professor of the<br />Philosophy of the Christian Religion|years=1968–1985}} {{s-aft|after=Richard Swinburne}} {{s-end}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Mitchell, Basil}} Category:1917 births Category:2011 deaths Category:20th-century English philosophers Category:21st-century English philosophers Category:20th-century English educators Category:21st-century English educators Category:20th-century English essayists Category:21st-century English memoirists Category:20th-century English Christian theologians Category:21st-century English Christian theologians Category:People educated at King Edward VI School, Southampton Category:Alumni of the Queen's College, Oxford Category:Fellows of Keble College, Oxford Category:Fellows of Oriel College, Oxford Category:English Anglican theologians Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:Nolloth Professors of the Philosophy of the Christian Religion Category:Royal Navy personnel of World War II Category:English pamphleteers