H. A. (Harold Arthur) Prichard

Harold Arthur Prichard was an English philosopher born in London in 1871 and educated at Clifton College and New College, Oxford. He first studied mathematics, then turned to philosophy, and spent most of his academic life at Oxford, where he was a fellow of Trinity College and later White's Professor of Moral Philosophy.

He is especially remembered for his work in ethics and theory of knowledge. Prichard became closely associated with moral intuitionism, arguing that our sense of obligation is not something we reach by long chains of reasoning, but something we grasp more directly. One of his best-known essays, Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?, helped make him a major figure in 20th-century British moral philosophy.

Although he was not a popular writer in the broad public sense, his influence on Oxford philosophy was lasting. Readers who come to him today often find a thinker who is concise, rigorous, and willing to question the assumptions behind moral theory itself.