Alfred Edward Taylor

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Alfred Edward Taylor (December 22, 1869 - October 31, 1945) was a philosopher most famous for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, moral philosophy, and Plato scholarship. He was a fellow of the British Academy. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1928 to 1929.

Trained at Oxford, Taylor began his career under the influence of the then fashionable movement of British Idealism. His early monograph, Elements of Metaphysics, can largely be seen as an attempt to distill the results of the idealist movement in a textbook form. Under the influence of his colleagues Samuel Alexander and G. F. Stout, he began to move away from his idealist roots towards towards a realist epistemology.

As a scholar of Plato, he was perhaps most famous for advocating the view that the vast majority of views spoken by the character of Socrates in the Platonic dialogues accurately reflected the views of the historical Socrates. His text Plato: The Man and His Work and his commentary on the Timaeus are particularly important contributions.

In moral philosophy, he explored a number of issues, including free will and the relationship between rightness and goodness, and was heavily influenced by the work of classical philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle as well as the medieval scholastics.

Among his important contributions in the philosophy of religion are his 1926-1928 Gifford Lectures, The Faith of a Moralist.