JAMES DESMOND BASTABLE (1918-2000)  

Professor of Philosophy 1944-1968

 

Cerebral academic who helped establish

Irish philosophy studies in a global environment

through a journal and a bibliographic legacy

 

James Desmond Bastable, popularly known by his middle name, was born on  25 October 1918 in Blackrock, Co. Dublin into a family that also produced a second priest and philosopher, his twin brother Patrick, who entered the Columban order.  James attended the Christian Brothers in Westland Row before entering Holy Cross College, Clonliffe from where he attended University College Dublin , graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy, and from where was ordained in the Pro-Cathedral by Archbishop McQuaid on 30 May 1942. His first appointment was as chaplain to the Loreto Convent, Foxrock and later that year he transferred to the Carmelite Monastery in Ranelagh where he remained as chaplain until 1944.  He was then appointed Professor of Philosophy at Maynooth.

At Maynooth his professorial responsibilities there mainly involved lecturing in his subject to second- and third-year Arts and Science students who were studying for the priesthood, and the occasional student doing the course for an honours degree awarded by the National University of Ireland in the subject (in 1944 the university had awarded its first Ph.D. degree in the subject to Fr. Timothy Crowley, who would join Fr. Bastable on the professorial staff in 1948).

Despite the limited scope of his professorial duties, James Desmond Bastable had an impressive engagement with the wider academic world. In 1951 he founded the annual journal Philosophical Studies, which ran to  thirty-three volumes over the almost forty years of its existence to 1988, during which it published a total of 2,179 documents (articles, reviews, announcements, etc.) that were eventually digitised by the Philosophy Documentation Centre for enhanced internet access. The journal was eventually succeeded by the International Journal of Philosophy Studies established by Dermot Moran, himself a lecturer in Philosophy at the NUI-recognised college at Maynooth from 1982 to 1989, when he was appointed as Professor of Philosophy at UCD.

In 1968 Fr. Bastable was appointed curate to the Wicklow parish of Aughrim-Greenane and the following year he went to University College Dublin as a member of the staff of the Department of Philosophy, which was then heavily influenced by Catholic academicians. There he joined his brother in a faculty that covered many critical areas of modern thought, including the disciplines of psychology, politics, ethics and sociology,  and also featured a number of prominent clerics, including the future Cardinal Archbishop of Dublin, Desmond Connell, a lecturer there since the mid-1950s who was appointed Professor of General Metaphysics in 1972. One interesting aspect of Fr. Bastable's transition was that it was accompanied by that of one of his former students at Maynooth, Philip Pettit, who became only the third layman (after Patrick Masterson and Denys Turner) to be a member of the staff of the faculty (Philip Pettit would go on to become a major international figure in philosophical studies).

James Desmond Bastable retired from his academic position in 1977 and in 1988 was made chaplain to St. Clare's Convent, Stillorgan where he remained until 1996.  He died on 9 August 2000 and was buried in accordance with his wishes in the Historic Maynooth College Cemetery.  His books were willed to University College Dublin, where they formed the basis of the Newman Research Library in the International Centre for Newman Studies at Newman House, under the aegis of the university's  Faculty of Interdisciplinary Studies in partnership with the Newman Foundation of Ireland (John Henry Newman, later Cardinal, had an important role in the establishment of the third-level education system that led to the creation of the National University of Ireland, of which UCD is part).