A painting of Frederick Copleston, S.J., that formerly hung in Heythrop College in London. Credit: Photo by author

Nine years ago, I found myself at Heythrop College, the venerable British Jesuit institution that was then a constituent college of the University of London, for a book launch. The school, now closed, was famed both for its alumni and its library, so I was eager to explore. (The library is now part of the London Jesuit Centre.) When I turned a certain corner, I came face to face with the man who had pulled my chestnuts from the fire, academically speaking, more than once in my undergraduate days:

Frederick Copleston, S.J.

It was a painting, of course: The famed Jesuit historian of philosophy had died in 1994. But his visage—the painting in question had also graced the cover of his 1993 autobiography—was quite familiar to me, as my years as a philosophy major in college had been deeply enriched by his nine-volume A History of Philosophy. And I am not alone, as those books continue to grace the bookshelves of philosophers, seminarians, college students and many others as an invaluable resource of clear-headed, insightful explication of the entire history of Western philosophy. 

I am fairly certain that my own copies of Volumes 2, 3 and 4 (Medieval Philosophy, Late Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy and Modern Philosophy from Descartes to Fichte) were filched from my mother’s library; she, too, credits “Freddie” with helping her through many a puzzling moment in her undergraduate studies. 

Born in Claremont, England, in 1907 to a distinguished British family (his father had been a judge in Burma, and two different uncles were Anglican bishops), Copleston was raised in the Church of England but became Catholic at the age of 17. He attended Marlborough College and Oxford University, graduating from the latter in 1929. After a year in a diocesan seminary, he entered the Society of Jesus in 1930. 

Ordained in 1937, Copleston was then sent to Germany, with plans for him to study for a doctorate in philosophy at the Gregorian University in Rome afterward. The advent of World War II brought him home instead, where he was appointed to Heythrop College to teach philosophy to Jesuit scholastics. Despite a formidable reputation as a teacher and scholar, he never earned a doctorate in philosophy. He would teach at Heythrop in different locations and positions until he retired in 1974, regularly also serving as a visiting professor at the Gregorian University in Rome. After his retirement, he taught as a visiting professor at Santa Clara University until 1982. 

In 1946, Copleston published a textbook on the philosophy of ancient Greece and Rome: It was the first volume of what would become the nine-volume A History of Philosophy (it’s now 11 volumes—two more of his books were added to the compendium after his death). These tomes, numbering in the thousands of pages and covering two and a half millennia of philosophy, begin with the pre-Socratics and end with 20th-century philosophers of existentialism and logical positivism. They represent an astonishing breadth of knowledge, all of it presented so as to be accessible to non-specialists and college students.

Father Copleston’s moment of greatest public fame came in 1948, when he debated the famous British analytic philosopher Bertrand Russell on a BBC radio broadcast. (You can listen to the whole thing here.) Who won? As with many things philosophical, much of that depends on one’s point of view, though the debate did influence the terms under which the existence of a supreme being was considered in popular culture in both Great Britain and the United States. The director of the BBC later said that Copleston “was the first man I had heard who could stand in the same ring as Russell on these matters and not seem out of place.”

A year later, Father Copleston debated the analytic philosopher and logical positivist A. J. Ayer on the BBC, focusing more narrowly on questions of linguistic meaning in the discussion of belief. (Copleston admitted decades later that he and Ayer got “pleasantly squiffed” together before the debate.)

From 1979 to 1980, Copleston delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, turning the lectures into Religion and the One: Philosophies East and West. Reviewing the book for America in 1982, John H. Wright described Copleston in terms recognizable to anyone who has used his texts. “The tone of these lectures is almost conversational,” he wrote. “Copleston carries the weight of his broad scholarship very lightly. Questions are raised, explored, qualified and, to the degree the evidence permits, answered.”

Frederick Copleston died in London in 1994. In an obituary, his fellow Jesuit Anthony Meredith noted that Copleston’s academic work was remarkable in that he was unscrupulously fair. In regard to Father Copleston’s own views, “these doubtless existed, but they were extremely difficult to extract. You knew that to any apparent statement of opinion there was always an ‘on the other hand’ in the offing. This reticence, so valuable in religious communities, freed him from the need to take sides on hotly disputed issues.”

A year before, Copleston had published Memoirs of a Philosopher. (The title is a bit sly: Fifteen years earlier, his old interlocutor A. J. Ayer had published Part of My Life: The Memoir of a Philosopher.) Writing in America in 1994 (actually, five days before Father Copleston died), editor in chief George W. Hunt, S.J., noted that while throughout his life, Copleston had “wrestled and sympathized with the arguments of innumerable atheistic philosophers,” he was able to write in “An Old Man’s Faith,” the closing chapter of the book, the following:

And with the advance of years I have become increasingly convinced that in interpreting the Christian faith we should place the emphasis where, it seems to me, Jesus placed it, namely on the leading of a life of Christian love.

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Our poetry selection for this week is “Question,” by Dierdre Lockwood. Readers can view all of America’s published poems here.

In other news, we are excited to announce a pilgrimage to Ireland in April 2026. Led by myself and America editor in chief Sam Sawyer, S.J., the trip, “The Land of Saints & Scholars: A Journey into the Heart & Soul of Ireland,” will be from April 19 to 28, 2026. Reserve your spot!

In this space every week, America features reviews of and literary commentary on one particular writer or group of writers (both new and old; our archives span more than a century), as well as poetry and other offerings from America Media. We hope this will give us a chance to provide you with more in-depth coverage of our literary offerings. It also allows us to alert digital subscribers to some of our online content that doesn’t make it into our newsletters.

Other recent Catholic Book Club columns:

Happy reading!

James T. Keane

James T. Keane is a Senior Editor at America.