Roger Squires obituary
My husband, Roger Squires, who has died aged 81, was an academic philosopher who studied and taught at the University of St Andrews for more than 35 years.
Roger, the son of Minnie (nee Deeming) and Frank Squiresnewsagents, was born and grew up in the little mining village of Polesworth, Warwickshire, and Nuneaton, where he attended grammar school. In 1958 an exhibition took him to Oxford University, where he got a first in philosophy, politics and economics, and where we met. We married in 1962, just after Roger came back from a year spent studying at Brown University in Rhode Island. He then took a BPhil at Oxford under the philosopher Gilbert Ryle.
In 1964 Roger became a lecturer at St Andrews University’s department of logic and metaphysics. He was soon promoted to senior lecturer. His main interest lay in the philosophy of mind, influenced by Ryle and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and he published a succession of articles in major British philosophical journals. He spent several years editing the Philosophical Quarterly journal.
Roger adhered to the precepts of ordinary language philosophy, which sees traditional philosophical problems as rooted in linguistic misunderstandings brought about by technical vocabulary that distorts or ignores what words mean in ordinary use. Roger analysed Wittgenstein’s writings assiduously, particularly concerning such issues as memory and dreaming – the latter topic was a particular interest. However, his preference was for teaching over research and he enjoyed supervising many students for their doctorates, always generous with his time. He retired from St Andrews in 2000.
In retirement Roger pursued his special interest in the puzzling nature of dream experience, culminating in a book finished shortly before his death, Nightmariners and Wideawakes: The Philosophy of Dreaming, soon to be published by Anthem Press.
Outside his work, Roger was an enthusiastic hill walker. Together we climbed all the Munros, Corbetts, Grahams and Donalds and all but the five St Kilda sea-stacks of the 1,557 “Marilyns” (hills in the UK with a 150m drop separating them from the next). We climbed the Munro A’Mhaighdean in 2019.
Although Roger broke an arm and a hip in April 2020 and caught Covid-19 in hospital, he recovered enough to walk up all but one of his local Marilyns that summer. He also enjoyed birdwatching over St Andrews bay from our house and listening to Fife bands concerts.
He is survived by our daughter, Jean, four grandchildren and me.