Castell, Alburey

Dr. Castell, Alburey (1904-1987) Canadian born, he taught in America after completing a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. His primary interests were in logic, mind, and education. Like Isaiah Berlin's hedgehog, Castell had a great single idea that he followed and developed everywhere. It was that there are two strikingly different modes of behavior: "activity" and "process." The mode of activity was the mode of a human being as he reasoned with other human beings and reasoned about the natural world. Castell's logic text, A College Logic, was a standard in the field before Copi's, and is a model text for a non-calculus logic. Logic describes the mode of activity of rational agents. In The Self In Philosophy, Castell presents his philosophy of mind, which asserts the necessity of a self as a presupposition of activity. Philosophy and the Teacher's World -a collection of essays on the philosophy of education -presents the implications of his logic and philosophy of mind for education. In addition to the above mentioned books, he wrote a widely used Introduction to Modern Philosophy, An Elementary Ethics, editions of several philosophical classics, scholarly papers, papers on liberal education, and numerous lectures for radio, television, and general university audiences. His insistence that psychology include the study of an agent and its activities, led his long-time colleague and adversary, B.F. Skinner, to write him into the novel Waldon Two as the villain Augustine Castle. Castell taught philosophy at the University of Minnesota from 1931 to 1941, at the University of Oregon from 1949 to 1963, and the College of Wooster from 1963 to 1974. He held visiting appointments and lectureships at numerous colleges and universities, including Columbia, Yale, Purdue, Washington, and Bowden.