Walter Terence Stace (November 17, 1886 ^[1] in London — 1967) was a British civil servant, educator and philosopher who wrote on Hegel and Mysticism.

Biography

Stace was born into a military family, with his great-grandfather General William Stace having served in the Battle of Waterloo, but chose a religious and philosophical path. Between 1910 and 1932, he served in the Ceylon Civil Service, holding several positions in the Ceylonese government including that of Mayor of Colombo. He became Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University in 1935 and was president of the American Philosophical Association in 1949 and 1950. Mysticism and Philosophy is considered Stace's major work. Stace was the dissertation advisor of John Rawls when Rawls was a graduate student at Princeton, though it is not clear that Stace had a strong influence on Rawls.

Works

• A Critical History of Greek Philosophy
• The Philosophy of Hegel
• The Meaning of Beauty
• Religion and the modern mind
• Mysticism and Philosophy. Full text online

External Links

• Short biography
• [1]

Quotes

`Either God is a mystery or He is nothing at all,' Stace wrote. `To ask for a proof of the existence of God is on a par with asking for a proof of the existence of beauty. If God does not lie at the end of any telescope, neither does he lie at the end of any syllogism. . . .'

References