J. N. Findlay

{{Infobox philosopher

|name = John Niemeyer Findlay

|image = Philosopher John Niemeyer Findlay (1903 - 1987).jpg

|caption =

|birth_date = 25 November 1903

|birth_place = Pretoria, Transvaal Colony

|death_date = {{death-date and age|27 September 1987|25 November 1903}}

|death_place = Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.John R. Shook (ed.), Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers, Thoemmes, 2005, p. 779.

|residence =

|nationality = South African

|doctoral_advisor = Ernst Mally

|notable_students = Arthur Prior{{Cite book |last1=Gabbay |first1=Dov M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gpwZYXsomEsC&pg=PA400 |title=Logic and the Modalities in the Twentieth Century |last2=Woods |first2=John |date=2006-05-10 |publisher=Elsevier |isbn=978-0-08-046303-2 |language=en}}

|region = Western philosophy

|era = 20th-century philosophy

|school_tradition = Analytic philosophy

|main_interests = Metaphysics, ethics

|influences = Hegel, Wittgenstein

|influenced =

|notable_ideas = Rational mysticism

|education = Transvaal University College
Balliol College, Oxford
University of Graz (PhD, 1933)

|institutions = University of Pretoria
University of Otago
Rhodes University College
University of Natal
King's College, Newcastle
King's College London
University of Texas at Austin

|spouse = Aileen Hawthorn

}}

John Niemeyer Findlay {{Post-nominals|country=GBR|FBA}} ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|f|ɪ|n|d|l|i}}; 25 November 1903 – 27 September 1987), usually cited as J. N. Findlay, was a South African philosopher.

Education and career

Findlay read classics and philosophy first at Pretoria High School for Boys, then from 1919 as an undergraduate at Transvaal University College,{{Citation |last=Kim |first=Bockja |title=Findlay, John Niemeyer |date=2010 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ijpj1tB3Qr0C&pg=PA778 |work=The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers |publisher=Continuum |language=en |doi=10.1093/acref/9780199754663.001.0001 |isbn=978-0-19-975466-3 |quote=}} where he became fascinated with the Theosophical Society’s blend of Oriental religious beliefs, which developed into a serious study of Hindu, Buddhist, and Neoplatonist writings. He taught himself enough Sanskrit to read the Bhagavad-Gita.Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay', Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 500

Findlay earned a BA at Transvaal in 1922 and an MA in 1924.{{Cite book |last1=Brown |first1=Stuart |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uL3UAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA281 |title=Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Philosophers |last2=Bredin |first2=Hugh Terence |date=2005-08-01 |publisher=A&C Black |isbn=978-1-84371-096-7 |pages=281 |language=en |quote=}} On the award of a Rhodes Scholarship, from 1924 to 1926, he studied at Balliol College, Oxford.

At Oxford he gained a first in literae humaniores, familiarly known as "Greats", a combination of philosophy and ancient history, in 1926.Oxford University Calendar, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926, p. 229 He stayed on for a fragment of a third year before returning to South Africa in 1927 as lecturer in philosophy at Transvaal University College.(the forerunner of the University of Pretoria).{{Cite web |title=Foundation Years: 1889 – 1929 {{!}} Article {{!}} University of Pretoria |url=https://www.up.ac.za/article/2876718/foundation-years-1889-1929 |access-date=2022-05-06 |website=www.up.ac.za}} From 1927 to 1948 he held appointments not only at the University of Transvaal (1927–1934) but also at the University of Otago in New Zealand (1934–1945), then back in South Africa first at Rhodes University College at Grahamstown, then at the University of Natal at Pietermaritzburg (1945–1948).Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay',Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 500.

During this time Findlay made a number of visits to Europe and North America - briefly to Berlin and Cambridge and more extensively to Graz in Austria and to Berkeley, Chicago, New York and Harvard.Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay',Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 501. At Graz he studied under Ernst Mally and received a doctorate on Meinong in 1933. He had taught himself German, a language in which he was fluent.Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay',Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 499.

Findlay's periods abroad enabled him to meet not only Carnap, Quine, and Heidegger, but also Wittgenstein. In Graz he became a member of a group which met with Wittgenstein each Tuesday. His responses to Meinong, to Meinong's teacher, Brentano, and to Wittgenstein 'each played a crucial part in enabling Findlay to develop his own distinctive point of view', according to Alasdair MacIntyre.Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay',Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 501.

Findlay left South Africa for the United Kingdom in 1948, where he was professor of philosophy at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne (1948–1951) and at King's College, London (1951–1966).Alastair MacIntyre, 'John Niermeyer Findlay', Proceedings of the British Academy, III, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001, pp. 504.

Following retirement from his chair at London (1966) and a year at the University of Texas at Austin, Findlay continued to teach full-time for more than twenty years, first as Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics at Yale University (1967–1972), then as University Professor and Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy (succeeding Peter Bertocci) at Boston University (1972–1987).{{cite web

|last=Howard

|first=Alana

|title=Biography

|work=Gifford Lecture Series

|url=http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=63

|access-date=2008-07-10

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080420074202/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=63

|archive-date=20 April 2008

}}{{citation|last=Harris|first=Errol|title=In Memoriam: John Niemeyer Findlay|date=Spring 1988|url=https://www.pdcnet.org/owl/content/owl_1988_0019_0002_0252_0253|volume=19|issue=2|pages=252–253|journal=Owl of Minerva|doi=10.5840/owl198819245|author-link=Errol Harris}}{{cite web

|url = http://www.bu.edu/philo/awards/index.html#findlay

|access-date = 2008-07-10

|title = Awards – Department of Philosophy at Boston University

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080514175746/http://www.bu.edu/philo/awards/index.html#findlay

|archive-date = 14 May 2008

|url-status = dead

}}{{Cite book |last=Quinton |first=Anthony |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/38862354 |title=Biographical dictionary of twentieth-century philosophers |publisher=Routledge |others=Stuart C. Brown, Diané Collinson, Robert Wilkinson |year=1997 |isbn=0-415-06043-5 |location=London |chapter=Findlay, John Niemeyer |oclc=38862354 |author-link=Anthony Quinton |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict0000unse_b8m6/page/234/mode/2up}}

Findlay was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1955 to 1956 and president of the Metaphysical Society of America from 1974 to 1975, as well as a Fellow of both the British Academy and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.{{Cite web |title=John Niemeyer Findlay |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/john-niemeyer-findlay |access-date=2022-05-12 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en |quote=John Niemeyer Findlay (1903 – 1987) Boston University; Boston, MA Philosopher; Educator AREA Humanities and Arts SPECIALTY Philosophy and Religious Studies ELECTED 1975}} He was also an Editorial Advisor of the journal Dionysius. A chair for visiting professors at Boston University carries his name, as does a biennial award given for the best book in metaphysics, as judged by the Metaphysical Society of America. Findlay betrayed a great commitment to the welfare and formation'"I owe to [Findlay’s] teaching, directly or indirectly, all that I know of either Logic or Ethics" (A. N. Prior). of generations of students (Leroy S. Rouner was fond of introducing him as "Plotinus incarnate"),{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}} teaching philosophy in one college classroom after another for sixty-two consecutive academic years. On 10 September 2012 Findlay was voted the 8th "most underappreciated philosopher active in the U.S. from roughly 1900 through mid-century" in a poll conducted among readers of Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog, finishing behind George Santayana, Alfred North Whitehead, and Clarence Irving Lewis.{{Cite web|url=https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2012/09/underappreciate-philosophers-active-in-the-us-from-roughly-1900-through-mid-century.html|title=Underappreciated philosophers active in the U.S. from roughly 1900 through mid-century?|website=Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog|access-date=2019-08-07}}

Findlay's autobiographical essay "Confessions of Theory and Life" is printed in Transcendence and the Sacred (1981).{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/transcendencesac0000unse |title=Transcendence and the sacred |date=1981 |publisher=Notre Dame, Ind. : University of Notre Dame Press |isbn=978-0-268-01841-2 |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}} Findlay's "My Life” is found in Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay (1985).{{Cite book |last1=Cohen |first1=R. S. (Robert Sonné) |url=http://archive.org/details/studiesinphiloso00cohe |title=Studies in the philosophy of J.N. Findlay |last2=Martin |first2=R. M. (Richard Milton) |last3=Westphal |first3=Merold |date=1985 |publisher=Albany : State University of New York Press |isbn=978-0-87395-795-3 |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

Work

=Rational mysticism=

At a time when scientific materialism, positivism, linguistic analysis, and ordinary language philosophy were the core academic ideas in most of the English-speaking world, Findlay championed phenomenology, revived Hegelianism, and wrote works that were inspired by Theosophy,"[My Gifford Lectures] ... represent my attempt to cull an eternal, necessary theosophy from the defective theosophic teaching of my adolescence" (Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay, p. 45). Findlay's Gifford Lectures also may well constitute the most comprehensive defense of the doctrine of the transmigration of the soul (reincarnation) in 20th-century academic philosophy. Buddhism, Plotinus, and Idealism. In his books published in the 1960s, including two series of Gifford Lectures, Findlay developed rational mysticism. According to this mystical system, "the philosophical perplexities, e.g., concerning universals and particulars, mind and body, knowledge and its objects, the knowledge of other minds,"{{citation

|last = Findlay

|first = J. N.

|author-link = J. N. Findlay

|chapter = Preface

|chapter-url = http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPTCAV&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=1

|title = The Transcendence of the Cave

|place = London

|publication-place = New York

|date = 1966

|publication-date = 1967

|publisher = Humanities Press

|url-status = dead

|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20140421221911/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPTCAV&Volume=0&Issue=0&ArticleID=1

|archive-date = 21 April 2014

}} as well as those of free will and determinism, causality and teleology, morality and justice, and the existence of temporal objects, are human experiences of deep antinomies and absurdities about the world. Findlay's conclusion is that these necessitate the postulation of higher spheres, or "latitudes", where objects' individuality, categorical distinctiveness and material constraints are diminishing, lesser in each latitude than in the one below it. On the highest spheres, existence is evaluative and meaningful more than anything else, and Findlay identifies it with the idea of The Absolute.{{citation

| last = Drob

| first = Sanford L

| title = Findlay's Rational Mysticism: An Introduction

| url = http://www.jnfindlay.com/findlay/about/index.html}}

=Husserl and Hegel=

Findlay translated into English Husserl's Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations), which he regarded as the author's best work, representing a developmental stage when the idea of phenomenological bracketing was not yet taken as the basis of a philosophical system, covering in fact for loose subjectivism. To Findlay, the work was also one of the peaks of philosophy generally, suggesting superior alternatives both for overly minimalistic or naturalistic efforts in ontology and for Ordinary Language treatments of consciousness and thought.{{citation

| last = Findlay

| first = J. N.

| author-link = J. N. Findlay

| chapter = Translator's Introduction (Abridged)

| editor-last = Moran

| editor-first = Dermot

| title = Logical Investigations

| volume = I

| place = New Haven, Connecticut

| publication-place = New York

| date = 1970

| publication-date = 2001

| publisher = Routledge

| isbn = 0-415-24189-8}}{{citation

| last1 = Ryle

| first1 = Gilbert

| authorlink1 = Gilbert Ryle

| last2 = Findlay

| first2 = J. N.

| authorlink2 = J. N. Findlay

| year = 1961

| title = Symposium: Use, Usage and Meaning

| periodical = Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes

| volume = 35

| page = 240

| url = https://www.sfu.ca/~jeffpell/Phil467/RyleUseUsage61.pdf

| access-date = 2008-06-14

}} Findlay also contributed final editing and wrote addenda to translations of Hegel's Logic and Phenomenology of Spirit.

=Wittgenstein=

Findlay was first a follower, and then an outspoken critic of Ludwig Wittgenstein.see Findlay's Wittgenstein: A Critique, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984 He denounced his three theories of meaning, arguing against the idea of Use, prominent in Wittgenstein's later period and in his followers, that it is insufficient for an analysis of meaning without such notions as connotation and denotation, implication, syntax and most originally, pre-existent meanings, in the mind or the external world, that determine linguistic ones, such as Husserl has evoked. Findlay credits Wittgenstein with great formal, aesthetic and literary appeal, and of directing well-deserved attention to semantics and its difficulties.{{citation

| last1 = Ryle

| first1 = Gilbert

| authorlink1 = Gilbert Ryle

| last2 = Findlay

| first2 = J. N.

| authorlink2 = J. N. Findlay

| year = 1961

| title = Symposium: Use, Usage and Meaning

| periodical = Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes

| volume = 35

| pages = 231–242

| url = https://www.sfu.ca/~jeffpell/Phil467/RyleUseUsage61.pdf

| access-date = 2008-06-14

}}

Works

= Books =

Meinong's Theory of Objects, Oxford University Press, 1933; 2nd ed. as Meinong's Theory of Objects and Values, 1963
Hegel: A Re-examination, London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Macmillan, 1958 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy)
Values and Intentions: A Study in Value-theory and Philosophy of Mind, London: Allen & Unwin, 1961 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy){{Cite journal |last=Kolnai |first=Aurel |author-link=Aurel Kolnai |date=1964 |editor-last= |editor-first= |title=Review: Findlay on Ethics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3749137 |journal=Philosophy |volume=39 |issue=147 |pages=75–79 |doi=10.1017/S003181910005525X |jstor=3749137 |issn=0031-8191 |url-access=registration}}
Language, Mind and Value: Philosophical Essays, London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1963 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy)
The Discipline of the Cave, London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1966 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) (Gifford Lectures 1964–1965 [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927040839/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPDCAV&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=True])
The Transcendence of the Cave, London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1967 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy) (Gifford Lectures 1965–1966 [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927041314/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Browse.asp?PubID=TPTCAV&Volume=0&Issue=0&TOC=True])
Axiological Ethics, London: Macmillan, 1970
Ascent to the Absolute: Metaphysical Papers and Lectures, London: Allen & Unwin/New York: Humanities Press, 1970 (Muirhead Library of Philosophy)
Psyche and Cerebrum, Aquinas lecture. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1972
Plato: The Written and Unwritten Doctrines, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul/New York: Humanities Press, 1974 Findlay's findings herein are summarized in his "[https://orb.binghamton.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1111&context=sagp Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small]" (1983). The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter. 113. (available as an Open Access download).
Plato and Platonism, New York: New York Times Book Co., 1976
Kant and the Transcendental Object, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981
Wittgenstein: A Critique, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984{{Cite journal |last=Williams |first=Meredith |date=July 1986 |title=J.N. Findlay, 'Wittgenstein: A Critique' |url=https://archive.org/details/10260-article-text-6036-2-10-20151217/page/273/mode/1up |journal=Philosophy in Review |volume=6 |issue=6 |pages=273–5 |via=Internet Archive}}

= Articles and book chapters =

"[https://aap.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00048404108541170 Time: A Treatment of Some Puzzles"]", Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, Vol. 19, Issue 13 (December 1941): 216–235, reprinted in Language, Mind and Value
[https://academic.oup.com/mind/article-abstract/LIII/210/142/1016171?redirectedFrom=PDF "Morality by Convention"], Mind, Vol. 33, No. 210 (1944): 142–169, reprinted in Language, Mind and Value
[https://web.archive.org/web/20210817161423/https://ditext.com/findlay/god.html "Can God's Existence Be Disproved?]", Mind, Vol. 37, No. 226 (1948): 176–183; reprinted in Language, Mind and Value, and, with discussion, in Flew, A. and MacIntyre, A. C., (eds.), New Essays in Philosophical Theology, New York: Macmillan, 1955
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/4544463 "Linguistic Approach to Psychophysics"], Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 1949–1950, reprinted in Language, Mind and Value
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251252 "The Justification of Attitudes"], Mind, Vol. 43, No. 250 (1954): 145–161, reprinted in Language, Mind and Value
[https://web.archive.org/web/20220508133759/https://watermark.silverchair.com/aristotelian56-0001.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAuAwggLcBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggLNMIICyQIBADCCAsIGCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMaujTpYpDsdOen2E4AgEQgIICk0vrzC50GdRRPbFQDb5erA45gRDBXS3URxygYZqkmrZ9Rz_HxOsVcQ_hpPSHZ-wEK5B-I8_IuVVk5GESohOANQD9mL8Jtn1wD72422-iwLSaPtplDfa8lgVPLP6kbPJeSDg3IgvsgN9T2PiKqmfM7TRRANuurZBo9xoKzXG8SPAp9rDhtfMDYMwSiYZaNuQeaho-q3gUXpMRU9mF-fo2P37OcOl6JUT2oOkPDMTEf_Xulx_PnxAXLIN8sDsTYUVVfzKryUb7srOW002BooJXYISg7zJvn9oXwmPJmeP0An5NSstblM242uOjN_tJ_2IUpLygEROIO84BJpwIV0DZKZ3RVKbY1-TcABnIYlir4mHChaASTq6ecdyfjmXuihwl4lsKN_oVTiAH9vE-4DtzF3XZ30J1wzWUI8yppKNo4AtIm-NR1j9PON7qwVGNcJFKN5GVhSTtF79b9dFKFRjVeovnpZE5WCAmvxZ1ud8FQgJKqPSPtAUcneH8pfZyDRBx1F9baD2GlyY0vSQHMnn6JR5h1jK3U9duKBO_54SueA8ZihZWFWvbw6rNHRip959zFrUP5hbli3yXYFrY6IksGETTFHFPoHqaFLbiy8o1KJ3ihoIdsHvBqDuVEcuEZIwjXAD6MZq3mT7XPVplEFSwZdLC68qGcgeRK79Efw3VMctu169R2woD-GuDeH73r1bzspbR4KiZtYj4bwJ7nj2Ati2u9rzbdRhcDCJ4Y83Um9SJ1JOBjSNw3vVJqoD9gZAyvBTZ_tIhE0N4tNJ8hcvLqUciZrzFL12kJYPKGJsaEtKbDNJnTqfCw15wDwNfSOjV9PMfHUXSu19MlIrJY07PqsnllHH-eT3iApS9kQyEmUX7owvz "I.—Some Merits of Hegelianism: The Presidential Address,"] Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 56, Issue 1, 1 June 1956, pp. 1–24
“The Structure of the Kingdom of Ends”, Henrietta Hertz Lecture, read at the British Academy, (1957)
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080627104225/http://www.sfu.ca/~jeffpell/Phil467/RyleUseUsage61.pdf "Use, Usage and Meaning"], Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes, Vol. 35. (1961), pp. 223–242
[https://kuscholarworks.ku.edu/bitstream/handle/1808/12384/The%20Systematic%20Unity%20of%20Value-1968.pdf;sequence=1 “The Systematic Unity of Value,”] in Akten Des XIV. Internationalen Kongresses Für Philosophie, (1968) Reprinted in Ascent to the Absolute
“Hegel and the Philosophy of Physics”, in J. J. O’Malley et al (eds.) The Legacy of Hegel: Proceedings of the Marquette Hegel Symposium 1970 (1973)
"Foreword", in Frederick G. Weiss, ed., Hegel: The Essential Writings, Harper & Row/Harper Torchbooks, 1974. {{ISBN|0-06-131831-0}}
"Foreword", in Hegel’s Logic, William Wallace (trans.), Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1975. {{ISBN|978-0-19-824512-4}} [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/foreword.htm]
"[http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Marxist_Philosophy/Hegel_and_Feuerbach_files/Hegel-Phenomenology-of-Spirit.pdf Foreword]", in Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, 1977. {{ISBN|0-19-824597-1}}
"[http://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Courses/Marxist_Philosophy/Hegel_and_Feuerbach_files/Hegel-Phenomenology-of-Spirit.pdf Analysis of the Text]", in Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, 1977: 495–592. {{ISBN|978-0-19-824597-1}} [http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/help/findlay.htm]
"The Myths of Plato", Dionysius, Volume II (1978): 19–34, (reprinted in Alan Olson, ed., Myth, Symbol, and Reality, South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980, 165–84)
"Confessions of Theory and Life" in Transcendence and the Sacred (1981)
“The Impersonality of God” in God, the Contemporary Discussion, Frederick Sontag & M. Darrol Bryant (eds) (1982)
"[https://orb.binghamton.edu/sagp/113/ Plato's Unwritten Dialectic of the One and the Great and Small"] (1983) The Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy Newsletter, 113.
“The Hegelian Treatment of Biology and Life”, in Hegel and the Sciences, Robert S. Cohen and Marx W. Wartofsky (eds), (1984)
"My Life” and "My Encounters with Wittgenstein" in Studies in the Philosophy of J. N. Findlay (1985)
[https://www.jnfindlay.com/findlay/bibliography/index.html Findlay's Nachlass] (list of posthumous essays derived from Findlay’s lecture notes and published in The Philosophical Forum)

= Translations =

Logical Investigations (Logische Untersuchungen), by Edmund Husserl, with an introduction by J.N. Findlay, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. (1970)

Notes

References

Robert S. Cohen, Richard M. Martin, and Merold Westphal (eds.), Studies in the Philosophy of J.N. Findlay, Albany NY: State University of New York Press, 1985 (Includes autobiographical note by Findlay and his account of encounters with Wittgenstein). {{ISBN|978-0-87395-795-3}}
Bockja Kim, Morality as the End of Philosophy: The Teleological Dialectic of the Good in J.N. Findlay's Philosophy of Religion, University Press of America, 1999. {{ISBN|978-0-7618-1490-0}}
Michele Marchetto, Impersonal Ethics: John Niemeyer Findlay's Value-theory, Avebury, 1996. {{ISBN|978-1-85972-272-5}}
Douglas P. Lackey, [https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/findlay/ "John Niemeyer Findlay"]. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

External links

[https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hegel-bulletin/article/john-niemeyer-findlay-19031987/3708B00AF98C6D19D93349E0F23F9063 John Niemeyer Findlay 1903–1987], Alasdair MacIntyre, Hegel Bulletin, Volume 8, Issue 2 (number 16), Autumn/Winter 1987, pp. 4–7. (Open Access).
[https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/sites/default/files/111p499.pdf John Niemeyer Findlay 1903–1987], Alasdair MacIntyre, Proceedings of the British Academy, Volume 111, 2001, pp. 429–512.
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180826204637/http://www.jnfindlay.com/ John Niemeyer Findlay] tribute page by Dr. Sanford L. Drob
[https://web.archive.org/web/20100609032932/http://www.otago.ac.nz/philosophy/history.html Philosophical History: The Otago Department]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20080420074202/http://www.giffordlectures.org/Author.asp?AuthorID=63 Gifford Lecture Series – Biography – John Niemeyer Findlay]