author

Carveth Read

1848–1931

A British philosopher and logician, he taught at University College London and wrote influential books that helped generations of students learn formal reasoning. He is also remembered for a line from his work on logic that later became famous in paraphrased form: it is better to be roughly right than exactly wrong.

2 Audiobooks

Logic: Deductive and Inductive

Logic: Deductive and Inductive

by Carveth Read

The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions

by Carveth Read

About the author

Born in Falmouth, Cornwall, on March 16, 1848, he studied at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he earned first-class honors in the Moral Sciences Tripos. After further study in Leipzig and Heidelberg, he built a teaching career in London and later became Grote Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Logic at University College London, serving from 1903 to 1911.

His best-known book is Logic: Deductive and Inductive, first published in 1898 and revised through later editions. He also wrote On the Theory of Logic, The Metaphysics of Nature, Natural and Social Morals, and The Origin of Man and of His Superstitions, showing a range that stretched from technical logic to ethics, metaphysics, and human evolution.

Read died on December 6, 1931, in Solihull, Warwickshire. Though not a household name today, his writing had a long afterlife in philosophy and education, especially through his clear, practical approach to reasoning.