Winspear, Alban Dewes

WINSPEAR, ALBAN DEWES (1899-1973). A Classical scholar of note, Winspear was long considered a leading Marxist in the field.

Winspear, born in Birmingham, England, immigrated to Canada, earned a BA at Queen’s University, Kingston, then a BA and MA at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar. He joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin in 1927 and remained until 1942. Collaborating with a student, Tom Silverberg, Winspear wrote Who Was Socrates (1939), which closely examines details of the philosopher’s life and trial, establishing his intimate connections with reactionary elements in Athenian society that conspired against the democracy. The authors argue, in effect, that Socrates may have largely been guilty of the charges against him, introducing new gods and thus corrupting Athenian youth. Winspear and his collaborator thereby anticipated the argument posited by I. F. Stone’s popular book The Trial of Socrates (1988).

Winspear’s next work, The Genesis of Plato’s Thought (1940; expanded edition, 1956) extended his discussion of the complex political scene of Plato’s life, concluding that in spite of his eloquence, “Once the great dualisms of idealist tradition have been introduced into thought, once the great rift has developed in society, there can be no easy reconciliation, no mechanical juxtaposition . . . Until that conflict [between thought and society] is resolved in actuality, or at least in hope, the troubling doubt that haunted Plato must continue to perplex his philosophical successors.”

Avoiding Marxist jargon, Winspear developed a new understanding of foundational problems in Western philosophy. He resigned from the University of Wisconsin in 1942, to become director of the leftist Abraham Lincoln School in Chicago and served until 1945. After founding and acting as headmaster of a private school in Vancouver, 1949-1956, he joined the faculty at the University of Calgary and retired in 1970. He published a translation of Lucretius in 1956 and a book on the poet’s scientific thought seven years later. His late-life scholarship focused on the use of computers to study ancient Greek texts. A prize for undergraduate students in Classics at Calgary still exists in his name.

Introduction by Anthony Preus to Alban Dewes Winspear. The Genesis of Plato’s Thought. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2011.

Introduction by Grover C. Furr, Who Was Socrates? On-line: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/socrates/.