Jonathan Bennett (philosopher)

Jonathan Francis Bennett (born 17 February 1930) is a British philosopher of language and metaphysics, and a historian of early modern philosophy.

Born in Greymouth, New Zealand to Francis Oswald Bennett and Pearl Allan Brash Bennett. Bennett read philosophy at the University of Canterbury (formerly Canterbury University College) and at the University of Oxford where he was a member of Magdalen College, Oxford.

Bennett's first academic post was as a Junior Lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand (then Auckland University College) (1952). He was an Instructor in Philosophy at Haverford College (Pennsylvania) (1955-56), then a Lecturer in Moral Science (Philosophy) at the University of Cambridge (1956–68), then at Simon Fraser University (1968–70), the University of British Columbia (1970–79), and Syracuse University (1979–97). In 1980, he was the Tanner Lecturer at Brasenose College of Oxford University. In 1992, he was the John Locke Lecturer at the University of Oxford. In 1985, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The British Academy extended him the same honor in 1991.

He has also written extensively on philosophy of mind, events, conditionals, and consequentialist ethics. Bennett is renowned for his interpretations of major early modern philosophers.