Alan R. White

He died at his home in Sherwood, Nottingham on 23 February 1992.

White retired to Nottingham, and was as appointed Special Professor of Philosophy at the university there in 1986.

White was a visiting professor at numerous American universities including the University of Maryland (1967–68, 1980), Temple University (1974), Simon Fraser University (1983), the University of Delaware (1986) and Bowling Green State University (1988). He also became known to the first generation of 'third year' students of philosophy at the Open University, participating in a BBC televised discussion on perception that was annually repeated as part of the 'A303, Problems of philosophy' correspondence course which ran from 1973 until 1981.

Within the philosophy department, White progressed to the positions of Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer, succeeding Jessop to become the second Ferens Professor of Philosophy in 1961 (a post he retained until his early retirement in 1985). At Hull he would also serve as dean of arts (1969–71) and as pro-vice-chancellor (1976–79).

In 1958 White completed his PhD at the University of London under the supervision of A.J. Ayer, with a thesis on "The Method of Analysis In the Philosophy of G. E. Moore." That same year would see the publication of the fruits of this research in his first book G.E. Moore: a Critical Exposition.

Prior to his arrival, Jessop had performed all the teaching duties for both philosophy and psychology. And though Hull's first dedicated psychology lecturer, George Westby, was appointed around the same time as White, the latter would himself also teach psychology as well as philosophy students long after the college acquired university status in 1954 and two separate departments were formed. Ullin Place records that, with the "connivance" of White, Westby. a fellow Rylean, succeeded in making Hull's psychology department "a center for a distinctive amalgam of ordinary language philosophy and behavioral psychology" in its early years. And Westby himself records White's "invaluable co-operation" in initiating and running the three-year "Philosophical Problems of the Sciences" course. The same having been intended to ensure psychology students appreciated "it is impossible to have a purely technical scientific language," a thorough examination of 'Mental' concepts being, as White notes, a necessary preparation "even for those whose chief interest is in the science of psychology."

In 1946 White was appointed as an assistant lecturer in the department of philosophy and psychology at the (then) University College of Hull, the departmental staff initially consisting solely of himself and Professor T. E. Jessop. White obtained this position on the recommendation of Luce who had contributed the "Inventory of the Manuscript Remains" to Jessop's A Bibliography of George Berkeley (1934).

Also through this time, which coincided with "The Emergency" of World War II, White served with the Local Defence Force in the 42nd Dublin Rifle Battalion. After graduation he remained at Trinity for a year to pursue further studies in classics and serve as a deputy lecturer in logic.

White was admitted to Trinity in 1941 with a junior exhibition and a sizarship in classics. During his time there he served as President of the University Philosophical Society. He graduated in 1945 with firsts in both classics and 'mental and moral science' (philosophy) . He is said. reports David J. Matheson, to have scored over 100 per cent in some of his exams by taking them in Irish, for which extra credit was given. Other achievements during his time as an undergraduate included prizes for Hegelian philosophy and flyweight.boxing. That he was also "pugnacious" outside the ring is attested to by Trinity philosopher A. A. Luce who records that the two had "many a battle" when White was a student in his class.

Alan Richard White (9 October 1922 – 23 February 1992) was an analytic philosopher who worked mainly in epistemology, the philosophy of mind, and, latterly, legal philosophy. Peter Hacker notes that he was "the most skillful developer of Rylean ... ideas in philosophical psychology" and that "if anyone surpassed Austin in subtlety and refinement in the discrimination of grammatical differences, it was White." Richard Swinburne remarks that "during the heyday of 'ordinary language philosophy' no tongue practised it better."

Alan R. White (as he was usually cited) was born in Toronto on 9 October 1922, the elder of two sons born to Irish emigrants George Albert White (1888–1940), an estate agent from Strabane, and Jean Gabriel (Kingston) White (1888–1957). Following their parents' separation in the early 1930s, both brothers moved with their Catholic mother when she returned to her hometown of Cork (where she would work in the drapery trade). There they would be educated in the Protestant faith of their father as boarders at Middleton College until the sixth form. White then transferred to (the Catholic) Presentation College, Cork, to prepare for entrance to Trinity College, Dublin. Despite his religious schooling, within only a few years White would become, as academic colleague Paul Gilbert notes, "a keen atheist."