22/01/2026
It is with great sadness that the Philosophy Programme at the University of Otago announces the death of our colleague and friend, Emeritus Professor Alan Musgrave.
Alan was appointed to the Chair in Philosophy at Otago in 1970, a position which he held until his partial retirement in 2011, and he also served as Head of Department from 1970–2005.
Alan was born in Manchester in 1940, and was awarded a BA in Philosophy and Economics at the London School of Economics in 1961. Following this he was awarded a PhD at LSE in 1969, for research carried out under the supervision of Karl Popper. He worked mainly in the areas of Philosophy (and History) of Science and Epistemology, and in addition to numerous important articles in these and other areas, he was the author of a number of books, including Common Sense, Science and Scepticism (Cambridge University Press 1992) and Essays on Realism and Rationalism (Rodolpi 1999).
Alan was awarded the 2012 Humanities Aronui Research Medal from the Royal Society of New Zealand, and the University of Otago’s highest research honour, the Distinguished Research Medal, in 2013. In 2012, in recognition of Alan’s huge contribution to philosophical education at Otago, the Department of Philosophy launched the Alan Musgrave Scholarship in Philosophy, with funding from a foundation headed by one of Alan’s former students. The Scholarship allows high-calibre international students to pursue studies in Philosophy at Honours and Masters level, and since its inception recipients have included students from the USA, Cuba, India, Austria, Vietnam, Iran and Singapore.
Until relatively recently, Alan was a regular attendee and contributor to our weekly Research Seminar in Philosophy. He will be greatly missed by all of us, not only for his penetrating philosophical intelligence, but for his kindness and attentiveness to students and colleagues, and a fund of often hilarious anecdotes involving some of the major philosophers of the 20th century.
