Charles Norris Cochrane

Cochrane was born in Omemee, Ontario. He attended the University of Toronto, graduating with a degree in Classics in 1911. He then attended the University of Oxford.[https://www.jstor.org/stable/137337?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents " Obituaries: Charles Norris Cochrane, 1889-1945 H. A. I."]. The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science / Revue canadienne d'Economique et de Science politique, Vol. 12, No. 1 (Feb., 1946), pp. 95-97

During the First World War, Cochrane was active in the Canadian Officers Training Corps and in 1918 went overseas with the 1st Tank Battalion.{{Cite web|url=https://utarms.library.utoronto.ca/charles-norris-cochrane-fonds|title=Charles Norris Cochrane fonds {{!}} UTARMS|website=utarms.library.utoronto.ca|access-date=2017-10-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303214133/https://utarms.library.utoronto.ca/charles-norris-cochrane-fonds|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}}

After the war, in 1919, Cochrane joined the Faculty of Ancient History at the University of Toronto.

His Thucydides and the Science of History{{cite journal|title=Reviewed Work: Thucydides and the Science of History by Charles Norris Cochrane|author=W. S. Ferguson|journal=The American Historical Review|volume=35|date=April 1930|publisher=Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical Association|jstor=1838425|pages=584–585|doi=10.2307/1838425}} appeared in 1929, and his best-known work, Christianity and Classical Culture, in 1940.{{cite book|author=Robert W. Cox|title=Universal Foreigner: The Individual and the World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v5W6CgAAQBAJ&pg=PA316|year=2013|publisher=World Scientific|isbn=978-981-4452-71-7|page=316}}{{cite book|author=Ian Wood|title=The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4X1pAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA274|date=27 September 2013|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-165477-0|page=274}} The latter work was praised by W. H. Auden,{{cite book|last=Bowersock|first=Glen Warren|authorlink=Glen Bowersock|title=From Gibbon to Auden: Essays on the Classical Tradition|date=25 March 2009|page=195|isbn=9780199704071|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sT6nyXtpkXAC&pg=PA195}}{{cite book|author=Wystan Hugh Auden|title=In Solitude, for Company: W. H. Auden After 1940, Unpublished Prose and Recent Criticism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hZMgC6P8U1AC&pg=PA111|year=1995|publisher=Clarendon Press|isbn=978-0-19-818294-8|page=111}} and it was in addition described by Harold Innis as "the first major Canadian contribution to the intellectual history of the West".{{cite book|last=Cox|first=Robert W|authorlink=Robert W. Cox|title=The political economy of a plural world: critical reflections on power, morals and civilization|year=2002|page=148|isbn=9780415252911|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xpHj8h-lxe4C&pg=PA148}} In it Cochrane investigated the political and cultural interaction between the Romans and Christians in the early days of Christianity.{{cite book|author=S.P. Foster|title=Melancholy Duty: The Hume-Gibbon Attack on Christianity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=o5fcBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA240|date=9 March 2013|publisher=Springer Science & Business Media|isbn=978-94-017-2235-3|page=240}}

In 2017, a new collection of Cochrane's posthumously published writings and collected essays appeared, Augustine and the Problem of Power: The Essays and Lectures of Charles Norris Cochrane.{{Cite web|url=https://wipfandstock.com/augustine-and-the-problem-of-power.html|title=Augustine and the Problem of Power|website=WipfandStock|language=en|access-date=2017-10-10}} The title essay in this volume was originally delivered as the 1945 Nathaniel W. Taylor Lectures at Yale University Divinity School. Cochrane expressed the opinion that the philosophy of Augustine largely replaced classical Greek philosophy as the dominant intellectual world view.{{cite book|author=Donald Le Roy Stults|title=Grasping Truth and Reality: Lesslie Newbigin's Theology of Mission to the Western World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LytdBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT58|date=25 December 2014|publisher=James Clarke & Co|isbn=978-0-227-90316-2|page=58}}

In his philosophy and historiography, Cochrane was influenced by R. G. Collingwood. The Hegelian philosopher James Doull was among his students.{{cite web|url=https://www.mun.ca/2003report/research/publishing/peddle.php|title=President's Report 2003 - Publishing|website=Mun.ca|accessdate=27 November 2017}}{{cite journal|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/180541|title=Philosophy and Freedom: The Legacy of James Doull (review)|first=John|last=Duncan|date=24 March 2005|journal=University of Toronto Quarterly|volume=74|issue=1|pages=317–319|accessdate=27 November 2017|via=Project MUSE|doi=10.1353/utq.2005.0036|doi-access=}} Doull's friend George Grant was also a very great admirer of Cochrane.{{cite book|last=Grant|first=George Parkin|authorlink=George Grant (philosopher)|title=Collected Works of George Grant: 1951-1959|pages=110–115|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=klodTNXC3OgC&pg=PA110&lpg=PA110&dq=%22george+grant%22+%22charles+cochrane%22&source=bl&ots=KJohZ23wjg&sig=aULOVv_GDXmZRamJsnEFk_zASS8&hl=en&ei=rbLbTN_MKIuYnAfpttAW&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false}} Political scientist Arthur Kroker, pointing to Cochrane's

writings about the conflict between Christianity and nihilism,Kroker, Arthur. [https://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/6298 "Augustine as the Founder of Modern Experience: The Legacy of Charles Norris Cochrane"]. Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory/Revue canadienne de theorie politique et sociale, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Fall/Automne, 1982) . and his insight into the "generative origins of Christianity as a response to a larger cultural crisis that secular thought, whether Roman or Greek, could not solve for itself," deemed Cochrane "one of the leading 20th-century philosophers of civilization."

Cochraine died on November 13, 1945, in Toronto.{{cite book|title=Phoenix|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=82MUAAAAIAAJ|volume=1|year=1947|issue = 2|publisher=University of Toronto Press}}

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{{Archival records|title=Charles Norris Cochrane fonds}}

• {{FadedPage|id=Cochrane, Charles Norris|name=Charles Norris Cochrane|author=yes}}
• {{DBCS}}
• [https://books.google.com/books?id=klodTNXC3OgC&dq=%22george+grant%22+%22charles+cochrane%22&pg=PA110 George Grant on Charles Norris Cochrane]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20160711163437/http://william-heise.com/2009/06/12/3-charles-norris-cochrane-christianity-and-classical-culture/ William E. Heise on Charles Norris Cochrane's Christianity and Classical Culture]
• [https://discoverarchives.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/charles-norris-cochrane-fonds Charles Norris Cochrane archival papers] held at the [https://utarms.library.utoronto.ca/ University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services]

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Category:1945 deaths

Category:1889 births

Category:20th-century Canadian historians

Category:20th-century Canadian philosophers

Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford

Category:Canadian male non-fiction writers

Category:University of Toronto alumni

Category:Academic staff of the University of Toronto