Jonathan Francis Bennett (17 February 1930 – 31 March 2024) was a philosopher, a specialist in Kant's work, and a historian of early modern philosophy. He had New Zealand citizenship by birth and later acquired UK and Canadian citizenship.
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Life and education
Jonathan Bennett was born in Greymouth, New Zealand, to Francis Oswald Bennett and Pearl Allan Brash Bennett. His father was a doctor and his mother a homemaker. He read philosophy at the University of Canterbury (formerly Canterbury University College) and was awarded his M.A. there in 1953. He then went to the University of Oxford where he was a member of Magdalen College, Oxford. He obtained his BPhil in 1955.
He and his wife (Gillian Bennett) share two children (Sara Fox-Laforest (nee Bennett) and Guy Bennett) and six grandchildren. Gillian Bennett was herself a professional psychologist. The pair eventually retired to British Columbia, Canada where Jonathan Bennett continued his work online on Early Modern Texts – a source utilized by numerous post-secondary students in support of their course work.
Career
Bennett's first academic post was as a junior lecturer at the University of Auckland (then Auckland University College), New Zealand (1952). He was an instructor in philosophy at Haverford College (Pennsylvania) (1955–56), then a lecturer in moral science (philosophy) at the University of Cambridge (1956–68), then at Simon Fraser University (1968–70), the University of British Columbia (1970–79), and in 1979 he went to Syracuse University as professor of philosophy. He remained in this position until his retirement in 1997.