Back to Latest Annoucements To the Soren Kierkegaard Society (USA). At AAR Banquet, San Antonio. Nov. 18, 2016 Sadly, I draw attention to the passing of Alastair McKinnon, a philosopher in the analytic tradition and Kierkegaard scholar. At age 91, he died peacefully in Toronto, on Sunday, November 6, 2016. His burial is at his birthplace in Ontario, Canada. Educated at Toronto and Edinburgh, McKinnon established at McGill University an academic career spanning about 40 years. Full professor by 1969, he held a prestigious chair in moral philosophy and subsequently headed the philosophy department. He was also a president of the Canadian Philosophical Society and a chartered member of the Kierkegaard Academy in Copenhagen. His research work, to discover the true Kierkegaard, made McGill University bebeficary of the Kierkegaard-Malantchuk collection. The acquisition in 1981 was celebrated by a Kierkegaard conference that resulted in the publication of the book Kierkegaard: Resources and Results. One of the contributors was Robert Perkins. As an analytic philosopher, Alastair McKinnon made his debut by raising doubts on positivist charges that religious beliefs are vacuous, undemonstrated and indemonstrable. Journal essays outlined his argument that he later developed in the book Falsification and Belief (1970). His interest in language analysis and Wittgenstein lead to his publication of a concordance for Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, and of noted essays on exist as in existence of God, and on miracle and paradox and natural law. Simultaneously, McKinnon was engaged in following a Kierkegaard research trajectory mapped out from about the mid-50s. The trajectory, to assist in the discovery of the true Kierkegaard, included producing a machine readable version of the 3rd edition of the Samlede Værker and developing computer-assisted statistical routines to aid textual analysis. One result of such work is a hierarchical ranking of the Kierkegaard pseudonyms. His massive four-volume Kierkegaard Indices, published in 1975, was a turning point or new phase in the trajectory - computer assisted statistical projects resulting in detailed analytical studies. Some of the work included conceptual topography in multidimensional space. To identify a few related publications, one shows that Kierkegaard never used the expression "leap of faith." Another discusses similarities and differences in accounts of Hegel. Yet another shows the increase of Christian terms in the corpus. Still, another discusses the space of the concept faith in the corpus. In a way, his contributions to Kierkegaard studies provided a new methodology, a different way of seeing or reading Kierkegaard texts, and were useful in preparing the new critical edition of the Samlede Værker. Recognition of his contribution to and understanding of the philosophy of Kierkegaard brought him honours: a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Knighthood in the Order of Danebrog, and in 1998 an honorary doctorate from St. Olaf College. They, in fact, followed the Canada-U.S.S.R. Exchange, April-May, 1976, award connected with his Moscow trip. From time to time, Kierkegaard scholars look to his scholarship. Some names include Niels Cappelorn, Andy Burgess, and Vincent McCarthy, as well as some others here this evening. To reckon among his students are the late Marxist political professor Gerald Cohen at Oxford, and the philosopher Richard Kearney now at Boston. He leaves for future scholars, besides research tools for computer textual analysis, interpretations, and translations of Kierkegaard works or related materials. I call to mind his essay on Kierkegaard in Nineteenth Century Religious Thought, Vol. 1 (985) as referring to two types of psychiatric material in the Corpus, and his rendering in English and editing of Ib Ostenfeld, Søren Kierkegaard's Psychology, a study by a psychiatrist showing that Kierkegaard's life and writings are explainable in normal psychological methods. To close with an estimate by Alastair Hannay, expressed in a very recent email communication: "I met him [McKinnon] first in 1983 and was immediately caught up in his energy and enthusiasm. A pillar of the now burgeoning world of Kierkegaard studies." In Memoriam, Alastair McKinnon Thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to note his passing Back to Latest Annoucements