John N. Gray

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Professor John N. Gray

John N. Gray (born April 17, 1948) is a prominent British political philosopher and author, currently School Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics.

Gray contributes regularly to The Guardian, New Statesman, and The Times Literary Supplement, and has written several influential books on political theory, including Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2003), an attack on humanism, a worldview which he sees as originating in religious ideologies. Gray sees volition, and hence morality, as an illusion, and portrays humanity as a rapacious species engaged in wiping out other forms of life while destroying its natural environment.

1 Academic career
2 Academic work
3 Quotations
4 Bibliography
5 Books about Gray
6 External links

[edit] Academic career

Gray studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he read Philosophy, Politics and Economics (PPE) and completed his B.A., M.Phil., and D.Phil.

He formerly held posts as lecturer in political theory at the University of Essex, fellow and tutor in politics at Jesus College, Oxford, and lecturer and then professor of politics at the University of Oxford. He has served as a visiting professor at Harvard University (1985-86), Stranahan Fellow at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University (1990-1994), and has also held visiting professorships at Tulane University’s Murphy Institute (1991), and Yale University (1994).

[edit] Academic work

A former supporter of the New Right in the 1980s, and then of New Labour in the early 1990s, Gray now sees the conventional (left-wing/right-wing) political spectrum of conservatism and social democracy as no longer viable.

Gray has perhaps become best known for his work, since the 1990s, on the uneasy relationship between the value-pluralism and liberalism of Isaiah Berlin, [1] which has ignited considerable controversy, and for his strong criticism of neoliberalism and of the global free market. More recently, he has criticised some of the central currents in Western thinking, such as humanism, and has tended towards Green thought, drawing from the "Gaia theory" of James Lovelock, among others.

[edit] Quotations

“To affirm that humans thrive in many different ways is not to deny that there are universal human values. Nor is it to reject the claim that there should be universal human rights. It is to deny that universal values can only be fully realized in a universal regime. Human rights can be respected in a variety of regimes, liberal and otherwise. Universal human rights are not an ideal constitution for a single regime throughout the world, but a set of minimum standards for peaceful coexistence among regimes that will always remain different.” — John Gray in Two Faces of Liberalism

"The core of the belief in progress is that human values and goals converge in parallel with our increasing knowledge. The twentieth century shows the contrary. Human beings use the power of scientific knowledge to assert and defend the values and goals they already have. New technologies can be used to alleviate suffering and enhance freedom. They can, and will, also be used to wage war and strengthen tyranny. Science made possible the technologies that powered the industrial revolution. In the twentieth century, these technologies were used to implement state terror and genocide on an unprecedented scale. Ethics and politics do not advance in line with the growth of knowledge – not even in the long run." — John Gray from the essay ‘Joseph Conrad, Our Contemporary’ in Heresies

[edit] Bibliography

Mill on Liberty: A Defence (1983). ISBN 0710092709.
Conceptions of Liberty in Political Philosophy (ed. with Zbigniew Pelczynski) (1984)
Hayek on Liberty (1984)
Liberalism (1986). ISBN 0816615217.
Liberalisms: Essays in Political Philosophy (1989). ISBN 0415007445.
J.S. Mill, "On Liberty": In Focus (ed. with G.W. Smith) (1991). ISBN 0415010012.
Beyond the New Right: Markets, Government and the Common Environment (1993). ISBN 0415092973.
Postliberalism: Studies in Political Thought (1993). ISBN 0415135532.
Enlightenment's Wake: Politics and Culture at the Close of the Modern Age (1995). ISBN 0415163358.
Isaiah Berlin (1995). ISBN 069104824X.
Liberalism (2nd ed.) (1995). ISBN 0816628017.
After Social Democracy: Politics, Capitalism and the Common Life (1996)
Mill on Liberty: A Defence (2nd ed.) (1996)
Endgames: Questions in Late Modern Political Thought (1997). ISBN 0745618820.
Hayek on Liberty (3rd ed.) (1998)
False Dawn: The Delusions of Global Capitalism (1998). ISBN 1565845927.
Voltaire (1998). ISBN 0415923948.
Two Faces of Liberalism (2000). ISBN 1565845897.
Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals (2002). ISBN 1862075123.
Al Qaeda and What it Means to be Modern (2003). ISBN 1565848055.
Heresies: Against Progress and Other Illusions (2004)
Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (2007). ISBN 0713999152.