Eric Revell Emmet, 1909 – 1980

Eric Revell Emmet was born in May 1909. He won a scholarship to Rossall School, and in 1928 a scholarship to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he read Mathematics Moderations and then Philosophy, Politics and Economics.

In 1933 he married Aileen Holt-Kentwell, the daughter of a barrister, and moved to Winchester College to teach economics and mathematics; he later taught philosophy there too. He was a housemaster from 1947 to 1963 and spent nineteen years with the school's Officer Training Corps, becoming a Major with the Territorial Decoration. After a short break, chiefly to write, he returned to Winchester and taught until he retired. He also wrote articles for Mind, Philosophy and economic journals.

His books fall into three groups: a school economics textbook written with R. C. Lyness, guides to clear thinking and philosophy such as The Use of Reason, Learning to Think and Learning to Philosophise, and puzzle collections that give readers practice at it. He also contributed puzzles to magazines and newspapers.

Emmet died in the spring of 1980, a few months after his wife, and shortly before The Island of Imperfection Puzzle Book was published.

1909 Born in May.

1932–33 Joins Winchester College as a teacher. Marries Aileen Holt-Kentwell in 1933.

1939 An Introduction to Economics, written with R. C. Lyness, published by Bell.

1947–1963 Housemaster at Winchester.

1960 The Use of Reason published by Longmans.

1964–65 Learning to Philosophise published (New York edition: Philosophical Library, 1965). Learning to Think and its Companion published by Longmans in 1965.

1967 101 Brain Puzzlers.

1968 Revised edition of Learning to Philosophise from Penguin.

1972 Puzzles for Pleasure published by Emerson Books.

1976 The Puffin Book of Brainteasers.

1978–79 A Diversity of Puzzles and Mind Tickling Brain Teasers (1978), The Great Detective Puzzle Book (1979).

1980 The Island of Imperfection Puzzle Book. US edition of Learning to Think from Emerson Books. Emmet dies in the spring.

1992 A Spanish-language edition of one of his puzzle books appears.

An Introduction to Economics with R. C. Lyness. Bell, 1939

The Use of Reason, Longmans, 1960. Later issued in the US as Handbook of Logic

Learning to Philosophise, 1964. New York: Philosophical Library, 1965. Revised edition, Penguin, 1968

Learning to Think, Longmans, 1965. US edition: Emerson Books, 1980

Companion to “Learning to Think”, Longmans, 1965

101 Brain Puzzlers, 1967

Puzzles for Pleasure, Emerson Books, 1972. (102 puzzles)

The Puffin Book of Brainteasers, 1976

A Diversity of Puzzles, 1978

Mind Tickling Brain Teasers, Emerson Books, 1978. (127 puzzles)

The Great Detective Puzzle Book, 1979

The Island of Imperfection Puzzle Book, 1980

Brain Puzzler’s Delight

Juegos para devanarse los sesos, Spanish-language edition, 1992

"Infinity", Mind, Vol. 66, No. 262 (Apr., 1957), pp. 242-249 (8 pages), https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251134

[A] note on the definition which Bertrand Russell gives of the mathematical concept of Infinity in his Essay "Mathematics and the Metaphysicians" ... first published in 1901, but the views which are there expressed about Infinity have not, as far as I know, been revised by the author later, ....

Response by Bertrand Russell: "Mathematical Infinity", Mind, Vol. 67, No. 267 (Jul., 1958), p. 385 (1 page), https://www.jstor.org/stable/2251536

"The Philosophy of Resemblances", Philosophy, Vol. 29, No. 109 (Apr., 1954), pp. 146-151 (6 pages), https://www.jstor.org/stable/3747756

This paper is a discussion and a criticism of the account of the Philosophy of Resemblances which appears in the first chapter of Professor H. H. Price's Thinking and Experience.

1. Author biography in E. R. Emmet, Learning to Philosophize (Pelican Books).
2. Eric Revell Emmet, https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL4734515A/Eric_Revell_Emmet, Open Library author page.