Elizabeth Flower

{{Infobox philosopher

|region = Western philosophy

|era = 21st-century philosophy

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|name = Elizabeth Farquhar Flower

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|school_tradition = Analytic

| institutions = University of Pennsylvania

|main_interests = moral philosophy, philosophy of law

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| doctoral_students = Vincent Luizzi

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| education = University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D.)

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Elizabeth Farquhar Flower (1914–1995) was an American philosopher and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. She co-authored (with Murray G. Murphey) a standard textbook on the history of philosophy, History of Philosophy in America.

Biography

Elizabeth Farquhar Flower was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1914. Her father was a teacher and her mother a nurse.{{Cite journal|last=Ross|first=James F.|date=1996|title=Elizabeth Flower 1915-1995|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3130632|journal=Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association|volume=69|issue=5|pages=124–126|jstor=3130632|issn=0065-972X}}

At twenty-one she graduated from Wilson College with a degree in chemistry. Initially interested in medicine, she changed the focus of her studies and in 1939 received a PhD in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania. Two years before graduating, she was appointed an assistant instructor, and eight years after graduating, she was appointed assistant professor of philosophy. She received tenure in 1956, and became a full professor in 1974. She was one of the earliest women to enter a career in teaching philosophy at universities in the United States.

She taught many students, the most prominent of whom was Martin Luther King Jr., who audited one of her early ethics seminars. Many of her articles were published in scientific journals, and in 1977, she published her most popular work History of Philosophy in America, and in 1994 she co-edited, Critique of Applied Ethics: Reflections and Recommendations.{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1995/06/29/obituaries/elizabeth-flower-80-philosopher-at-penn-and-author-of-text.html|title=Elizabeth Flower, 80, Philosopher at Penn And Author of Text|last=Saxon|first=Wolfgang|date=1995-06-29|work=The New York Times|access-date=2017-11-19|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}} Flower also co-edited Morality, Philosophy and Practice in 1989 and was a coauthor of Principales De La Philosofia NordeAmericana She sporadically taught at Columbia (Barnard), Hamilton College, and foreign schools in Peru, Colombia, Chile and Argentina.{{Cite web|url=http://www.archives.upenn.edu/faids/upt/upt50/flower_ef.html|title=Guide, Elizabeth F. Flower Papers (UPT 50 F644), University Archives, University of Pennsylvania|website=www.archives.upenn.edu|access-date=2017-11-19}} Flower taught undergraduate ethics for many years at the University of Pennsylvania. She emphasized the impact of Scottish realism on the development of philosophy in America.{{Cite journal|last=Quandt|first=Jean B.|date=1979-06-01|title=A History of Philosophy in America. By Elizabeth Flower and Murray G. Murphey. (New York: Capricorn, 1977. Vol. I: xx + 435 pp. Notes and indexes. Vol. II: 510 pp.)|url=https://academic.oup.com/jah/article/66/1/101/715641|journal=Journal of American History|language=en|volume=66|issue=1|pages=101–102|doi=10.2307/1894677|issn=0021-8723|jstor=1894677|url-access=subscription}}{{Cite journal|last=Montgomery|first=Sharon B.|date=1996|title=Remembering Elizabeth Flower (1915–1995)|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0887536700008564/type/journal_article|journal=Hypatia|language=en|volume=11|issue=4|pages=ix–xii|doi=10.1111/j.1527-2001.1996.tb01029.x|s2cid=143047229 |issn=0887-5367|url-access=subscription}}

Outside of teaching philosophy, Flower was secretary of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Society, and she married philosopher Abraham Edel in 1973. She died on June 26, 1995, of cancer.

Bibliography

History of Philosophy in America
Critique of Applied Ethics
Morality, Philosophy and Practice
Principales De La Philosofia NordeAmericana

Elizabeth Flower

Biography

Bibliography

References

Further reading