David Armstrong

David Malet Armstrong AO, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney since 1992 and Challis Professor of Philosophy from 1964 to 1991, died peacefully on May 13. He was born in Melbourne in 1926 and is survived by his wife Jenny Armstrong, and by his former wife Madeleine Haydon. David was a member of the board of directors of Quadrant from 1975 to 2014.

I first met David Armstrong early in 1947 when, recently discharged from the Navy, he arrived at Sydney University and enrolled in Philosophy 1. It was obvious immediately that he was a special case. The rest of us—the philosophy students—were dutifully taking down notes at lectures and trying to think like philosophers. But David was the real thing. He was already a philosopher. In the last lecture he ever gave—at Sydney University a couple of years ago—his opening words were: “What is truth?” It was the same question that fascinated him, obsessed him, sixty-five years earlier and stood him apart….