Two other early colleagues were Kit Fine, now Silver
Professor of Philosophy and Mathematics at NYU, and Distinguished
Research Professor at Birmingham, and Andrew Barker, Emeritus
Professor of Classics at Birmingham, who is widely recognized for
his studies in ancient Greek music and musical theory. In 2005 both
were elected Fellows of the British Academy. On the occasion of his 50th birthday, nineteen of
Griff’s colleagues, friends, and former students conspired in the
informal publication of Griffschrift, a collection whose constituent
papers were limited, in principle, to 500 words each. There is a
copy of this mini-Festschrift at B 29.U6 in the University
Library. Politically conservative, Griff had old-fashioned
ideas of how to organize an undergraduate curriculum in Philosophy.
Warwick’s Philosophy degree initially contained a substantial amount
of history of philosophy, a good deal of ethics, epistemology, and
metaphysics, and much more logic than is nowadays fashionable.
There were some options available, including options in Politics, but not many. To start with there were joint degrees with Politics and with Mathematics ? others were introduced a little later. A one-year course (what would now be called a module worth 30 CATS) devoted to Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason was the centrepiece of the final year of the Philosophy degree. Griff himself taught this course, as well as the introductory course required of all first-year students, for which he prepared weighty typewritten notes devoted to arguments for the existence of God, and to other central topics in traditional metaphysics. The undergraduate syllabus was of course always in flux. Being as contrary as he was, Griff did not provoke much surprise, only alarm, with his proposal in the mid-1980s that the Department abandon the teaching of ethics, on the grounds that modern moral philosophy, his own contributions included, was worthless.
He was the leading voice, as well as chorusmaster and songwriter, for the School of Philosophy Male Voice Choir, an otherwise inaudible ensemble that was mobilized on three or four occasions as a cabaret act at University social functions. Even those who were not at Warwick in the 1970s may appreciate the prescience of the quatrain ‘Academic Registrar // Meteoric rising star // When we come to park our car // How we wonder what you are!’ that formed part of a hymn specially written for one of the Choir’s engagements. When he was appointed a Pro Vice Chancellor in 1970, he was a natural choice as Chairman of the Social Policy Committee. It was under his leadership that the decision was made to revoke the plan to use S&D2 [the second stage of the Social & Dining facilities] as a combined social building for all sections of the University (students, support staff, academic staff, or members of the JCR, MCR, and SCR, as they were then called), and to hand it over in its entirety to the Students’ Union. Many staff soon began to appreciate the advantage of not housing the Staff Club on the top floor of what is now the main Union Building. Griff was a heavy smoker at a time when smoking was an acceptable occupation, but he eventually abandoned the habit, settling instead for a permanent diet of snuff, for which he had long had a liking, and in celebration of which, in later years, he maintained a website. He collected snuffboxes, and also antique clocks. Music was one of his principal diversions. He was an enthusiastic poker player, but rarely took arduous physical exercise. For many years after his retirement in 1992 he neither saw nor corresponded with his former colleagues, but more recently he was coaxed back to occasional companionship, and some of us found considerable pleasure in visiting him again and reviving our friendship with him. Hardly less sharp-witted than he had ever been, he was as outrageous and opinionated as he had always been, but that was part of his charm. Our sympathy goes to his son John, to the rest of his family, and to all those who were positively affected by him. He will be greatly missed.
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