Denis John Bernard Hawkins (17 July 1906 – 16 January 1964) was a British philosopher and Catholic priest."Hawkins, Denis John Bernard". New Catholic Encyclopedia. The Gale Group, 2003.
Hawkins was born in Thornton Heath and attended Whitgift School, Croydon."Denis John Bernard Hawkins". Oxford Reference. Ed. Retrieved 18 Feb. 2019 He obtained his doctorates in philosophy (1927) and theology (1931) from the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.
He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1930 for the diocese of Southwark. He was a parish priest in Claygate in 1940 and received an honorary canon of the diocese of Southwark in 1956. Hawkins was a neo-Thomist and updated Thomism with modern thought. He was influenced by the realism of Thomas Aquinas, that the human mind can know external reality. He also defended a form of direct realism and an intuitive perception theory. In a review, William Kneale described Hawkins' The Criticism of Experience as a restatement of the Scottish common sense school.Kneale, William. (1946). Reviewed Work: The Criticism of Experience by D. J. B. Hawkins. Philosophy 21 (79): 180–181.
Selected publications Causality and Implication (1937) Approach to Philosophy (1938) The Criticism of Experience (1945) A Sketch of Medieval Philosophy (1947, 1968)Carré, M. H. (1947). Reviewed Work: A Sketch of Mediaeval Philosophy by D. J. B. Hawkins. Philosophy 22 (81): 81–82. The Essentials of Theism (1950)Campbell, C. A. (1950). Reviewed Work: The Essentials of Theism by D. J. B. Hawkins. The Philosophical Quarterly 1 (1): 87–88. Being and Becoming (1954) Crucial Problems of Modern Philosophy (1957) Man and Morals (1960) Christian Morality (1963)
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