David McNaughton

For my final interview from southern Scotland, it was a pleasure to meet David McNaughton, who was, until recently, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at Florida State University. We begin our conversation by discussing the incongruities of celebrating Christmas in Florida and whether and how it might be deemed an inversion of what is natural and right.

David grew up in Gateshead and reminisces about the primary school he went to in the Yorkshire Dales where every child from the ages of 5 through to 11 was taught in a single room by one teacher. He went to grammar school in Nottingham where he developed an interest in French poetry, Dante and Conrad. We discuss how the best way to get people to read a text is to ban it and why being in a darkened theatre amounts to total absorption, as when he was once completely immersed in the experience of watching the silent film ‘Napoleon’ (1927) over several hours.

David, who came from a family of schoolteachers, explains how he ended up becoming a philosopher and reflects on how to this day he can remember what his lecturers said 50 years ago. We learn why Philosophy attracts a certain type of person and why, in his student days, there was a high dropout rate. We also discover who David’s biggest influences were.

We learn about David’s formative educational experiences and David shares a number of anecdotes regarding how, when he first started lecturing, academics weren’t taught how to teach or required to publish and essays were graded without there being a designated marking criteria.

David also talks about the wider cultural influences he was exposed to in Oxford and, in the final part of the interview, we learn whether there are any specific negative things about which it is not possible to be nostalgic (such as being humiliated or lonely) and, conversely, which hardships it is possible to be nostalgic about. We also discuss the analogy between Facebook and fruit machines and we learn about the concept of ‘retrospective enjoyment’ and whether David has any regrets about anything in his life to date.

Please note: Opinions expressed are solely those of Chris Deacy and David McNaughton and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the University of Kent.