Frederick Charles Copleston

From Philosopedia

Frederick Charles Copleston (10 April 1907 - 3 February 1994)

Born in Taunton, Somerset, England, Copleston converted to Roman Catholicism while a student at Marlborough College. A Jesuit priest, he wrote the influential nine-volume History of Philosophy and was known for his work on the theories of St. Thomas Aquinas.

In 1948 he and Bertrand Russell had a BBC radio debate on whether or not God exists.

A description of Copleston was written by encyclopedist Dr. Paul Edwards in 1963):

Copleston was Professor of Metaphysics at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and of the History of Philosophy at Heythrop College, Oxford. Father Copleston has been a member of the Society of Jesus since 1930 and is widely considered the leading Catholic philosopher in the Anglo-Saxon world. His books include Friedrich Nietzsche (1942), Arthur Schopenhauer (1946), A History of Philosophy (Vols. I - III, 1946 - 1953), Medieval Philosophy (1952), Aquinas (1955), Contemporary Philosophy (1956). The last-mentioned book contains a number of papers on logical positivism.