Walter Terence Stace (17 November 1886 – 2 August 1967) was a British civil servant, educator, public philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativism. He worked with the Ceylon Civil Service from 1910 to 1932, and from 1932 to 1955 he was employed by Princeton University in the Department of Philosophy. He is most renowned for his work in the philosophy of mysticism, and for books like Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) and The Teachings of the Mystics (1960). These works have been influential in the study of mysticism, but they have also been severely criticised for their lack of methodological rigor and their perennialist pre-assumptions.
Early life and education Walter Terence Stace was born on 17 November 1886 in Hampstead, London into an English military family. He was a son of Major Edward Vincent Stace (3 September 1841 – 6 May 1903) (of the Royal Artillery) and Amy Mary Watson (1856 - 29 March 1934), who were married on 21 December 1872 in Poona (Pune), India. In addition to attaining high rank in the Royal Artillery, Walter's father Edward had also served as a British Political Agent (February 1889-August 1893) in British Somaliland. Walter's great-grandfather William Stace (1755 - 31 May 1839) was Chief Commissary (Commissary-General) of the Royal Artillery during the Battle of Waterloo (18 June 1815).William Stace (1755 - 31 May 1839) was Chief Commissary (Commissary-General) of the Royal Artillery from 8 November 1810 – 30 April 1823, then the Royal Artillery promoted him and on 1 May 1823 he began serving as Royal Ordnance Storekeeper at Woolwich Arsenal. See: General W. H. Askwith (Colonel-Commandant Royal Artillery) - List of Officers of the Royal Regiment of Artillery from the Year 1716 to the Year 1899 (Fourth Edition) (London and Beccles: Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited for the Royal Artillery Institution, 1900), p. 194. Walter's mother Amy was a daughter of Rev. George Augustus Frederick Watson (1821-1897) and Elizabeth Mary Williams, who were married on 15 June 1852 in St. James' Church, Paddington, London. Rev. G. A. F. Watson was vicar (1877-1893) of St. Margaret's Church in Abbotsley, Huntingdonshire/Cambridgeshire.
Instead of pursuing a military career, Walter decided to follow a religious and philosophical path. He was educated at Bath College (1895-1901), Fettes College (in Edinburgh, Scotland) (1902-1904), and later at Trinity College Dublin (Ireland). His original intention was to become a priest in the Anglican Church, having experienced a religious conversion in his teens. However, while at Trinity College, through the influence of Hegel scholar Henry Stewart Macran (1867-1937) (professor of moral philosophy in Trinity College) he developed a deep interest in the systematic philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), and graduated in philosophy in 1908.W. T. Stace Britannica.com.
Career Under family pressure Stace joined the British Civil Service, and between 1910 and 1932 he served in the Ceylon Civil Service (now Sri Lanka) which was then a part of the British Empire. He held several positions in the Ceylonese government, including District Judge (1919-1920) and Mayor of Colombo (1931-1932), the capital city of Ceylon. In Colombo a street named after him (Stace Road) still exists. It was during his period in Ceylon that he developed an interest in Hinduism and Buddhism, religions which were to influence his subsequent studies of mysticism. While employed by the Ceylon Civil Service, during the period 1920-1932 Stace published 4 philosophical works (see below).
Anticipating a change in the Ceylonese government and a possible termination of his employment, in 1929 Stace earned a LittD from Trinity College after he presented the college with a thesis, The Theory of Knowledge and Existence. In 1932 this thesis was published as a book by Oxford University Press. The LittD degree, and the 4 books he had published while an employee of the Ceylon Civil Service, proved to be the keys to his entry into a new career.
After being employed for 22 years (1910-1932) in the Ceylon Civil Service, in 1932 Stace was offered the option of retirement, which he took. He then moved to Princeton University (in Princeton, New Jersey, USA) where he was employed by the Department of Philosophy, first as lecturer in Philosophy (1932-1935) and then as Stuart Professor of Philosophy (1935-1955). In 1949-1950 he was president of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division).APA Divisional Presidents and Addresses (accessed 16 June 2014). Stace retired from Princeton University in 1955. From 1955 to 1967 he held the title/status of Professor Emeritus.Princeton University | Department of Philosophy | Our History
Stace was married twice. His first wife, Adelaide McKechnie (born 1868 in Carlow, Ireland), was 18 years older. He married Adelaide in 1910 and they were divorced in 1924. His second wife was Blanche Bianca Beven (4 August 1897 – 17 July 1986), whom he married in 1926. Blanche was born in Colombo, Ceylon and died in Los Angeles County, California.
Walter Terence Stace died on 2 August 1967, of a heart attack at his home in Laguna Beach, California.
Philosophy
Stace's first 4 books - A Critical History of Greek Philosophy (1920), The Philosophy of Hegel: A Systematic Exposition (1924), The Meaning of Beauty (1929), and The Theory of Knowledge and Existence (1932) - were all published while he was employed by the Ceylon Civil Service. After these early works, his philosophy followed the British empiricist tradition of David Hume, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell and H.H. Price. However, for Stace, empiricism did not need to be confined to propositions which it is possible to demonstrate. Instead, our common sense beliefs find support in two empirical facts: (1) men's minds are similar (2) men co-operate with each other, with the aim of solving their common problems.
Stace is regarded as a pioneer in the philosophical study of mysticism.Overall, Christine, (1982) Mysticism, Phenomenalism and W.T. Stace. Charles S. Peirce Society, Transactions, 18:2 Many scholars regard Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) as his major work. Stace was the dissertation advisor of John Rawls when Rawls was a graduate student at Princeton, though it is not clear that he had a strong influence on Rawls. Richard Marius attributed his loss of faith partly to his intellectual engagement with Stace's essay Man Against Darkness.
Phenomenalist philosophy
His work in the 1930s and 40s bears a strong influence of phenomenalism, a form of radical empiricism (not to be confused with phenomenology, which examines the structure and content of consciousness). In his first book published while at Princeton, The Theory of Knowledge and Existence (1932), Stace proposes an empirical epistemology. He attempts to "trace out the logical steps by which the mind, starting with what is given, arrives at and justifies its belief in an external world".Stace, W. T., The Theory of Knowledge and Existence (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), p. 27. The book can be seen as a criticism of pragmatism.F.C.S. Schiller Mind 1933 XLII(165):94–100 His paper Refutation of Realism (1934) acted as a response to G.E. Moore's famous refutation of idealism. Stace did not argue that realism is false, but that "there is absolutely no reason for asserting" it is true, so it "ought not be believed". Turning from epistemology to ethics, in 1937 he considered whether morals were relative or subject to a general law in The Concept of Morals.
The public philosopher
In 1948, Stace wrote an influential essay, Man Against Darkness, for The Atlantic Review in which he examined religion. He concluded that the spirit of scientific enquiry (rather than scientific discoveries themselves) has furthered religious scepticism by undermining the teleological presumption of an ultimate 'final cause'. Concern with divine purpose of events had been replaced by investigation into what had caused them; the new imaginative picture of the world was dominated by the idea that life is purposeless and meaningless. The effects of this change included moral relativity, the individualisation of morality, and the loss of belief in free will.Stace, W.T. (1967) Man Against Darkness and Other Essays, p. 15, University of Pittsburgh Press Stace wrote:
In the spring of 1949, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology hosted a forum called "The Social Implications of Scientific Progress—an Appraisal at Mid-Century."Burchard, John Ely ed. (1950) Mid-Century: The Social Implications of Scientific Progress. Verbatim Account of the Discussions Held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on the Occasion of Its Mid-Century Convocation, 31 March 1 and 2 April 1949, Technology Press and Wiley, Winston Churchill, Harry S. Truman, Vannevar Bush, Nelson Rockefeller were amongst those in attendance. Stace took part in a discussion called 'Science, Materialism and the Human Spirit' alongside J. Seelye Bixler (1894-1985), Percy W. Bridgman and Jacques Maritain. He contributed an essay, The Need for a Secular Ethic, in which he concluded that although supernatural or metaphysical justifications for morality are in decline, this should not lead to a crisis of the moral faith if it is remembered that 'morals have a perfectly firm and objective foundation in the human personality'. In 1954, he gave the annual Howison Lecture in Philosophy at University of California, Berkeley, where he spoke on "Mysticism and Human Reason".Howison Lectures in Philosophy
In the fall of 1957, two years after retiring from his post at Princeton, Stace was involved in a controversy surrounding Dr. Joseph Hugh Halton (1913-1979), a member of the Roman Catholic Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) who was the Roman Catholic chaplain at Princeton University and the Director of the Aquinas Institute (located near the Princeton University campus). Halton criticised the university's 'abusive liberalism', and Stace was the first of those singled out for censure. Halton stated that 'Stace is enthroning the devil' and that he was 'professionally incompetent', while his philosophy was described as a 'metaphysical mambo'. The Princeton president Dr. Robert F. Goheen stripped Dr. Halton of his title, an action which was supported by Jacques Maritain, the noted Roman Catholic philosopher and theologian and former Princeton professor.Princeton furor over a chaplain Life Magazine, 7 October 1957, Vol. 43, No. 15, P. 137,
Stace continued to engage with the public until the end of his career. Two of his final books, Religion and the Modern Mind (1952) and The Teachings of the Mystics (1960) were written for the general reader. He gave lectures at various university campuses around the United States, many of which were included in Man Against Darkness and other essays (1967).
Philosophy of religion and mysticism
It is in the philosophy of mysticism that Stace is both important and influential, and his thought is at its most original. He has been described as "one of the pioneers in the philosophical study of mysticism", as someone who laid out and offered solutions to the major issues in the study of the subject, and created an important phenomenological classification of mystical experience.Hood. Ralph, W. (2001) Dimensions of Mystical Experiences: Empirical Studies and Psychological Links. Rodopi. p. 156 Stace is seen as an important representative of the perennial philosophy (also known as the perennialism) that sees a universal core to religious feelings.Leeming, David A. Madden, Kathryn. Marlan, Stanton. (Oct 2009) Encyclopedia of Psychology and Religion: L-Z, Springer Science & Business Media. p.912.Sharf, Robert H. Experience in Taylor, Mark C. (ed.) (2008) Critical Terms for Religious Studies. University of Chicago Press. pps. 95-96 However, although he is seen by many scholars as an important thinker to acknowledge, he is also one to dispute.