David Mills Daniel

Hi there!

And welcome to my Author Page, where 'Philosophy is for Everyone'!

I am David Mills Daniel, author of the SCM 'Briefly' series, 'Briefly: 25 Great Philosophers from Plato to Sartre', 'SCM AS/A2 Ethics and Moral Philosophy' and 'Briefly: AS/A2 Revision Guide - Ethics and Religious Ethics', which I have just published on Kindle.

They say teaching is a way of life, not a job. After twenty years as a teacher and head teacher, I stopped teaching full-time twenty years ago (how the time flies!). Since then, I have worked as an educational consultant, freelance lecturer/researcher and writer; and, until recently, as a chief examiner in religious studies in the UK. All these activities have helped to ensure that I stay up to date with developments in the educational world.

Over the past six years, a major focus of my life has been developing and writing my 'Briefly' series of guides to key texts in philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and theology/religious studies. Published by the SCM Press, a major aim of the series is to enable school and college/university students to acquire knowledge and understanding of these texts, and of the thinking of the philosophers or theologians who wrote them. 21 classic text 'Briefly' guides have now been published.

My motto is 'Philosophy is for Everyone!', so the series is also designed to make the texts, and philosophical ideas in general, more accessible to those who would like to know more about the subject, and to encourage people to discover for themselves what studying philosophy has to offer.

Indeed, one of my greatest pleasures in life is discussing philosophy with those who do not think it has much to offer them. A lot of people believe that philosophy is remote from everyday life, belongs in the study or lecture room, and is for those who are able to devote their lives to thinking, rather than doing.

Well, yes. Philosophy is thinking about things, but that includes all the issues which matter to everyone: the nature of the world we inhabit; our responsibilities to others; how we should live our lives; the sort of priorities we should have; what sort of society we want; our relationships; the values we should hand on to our children; and so on.

So, philosophy is not just a subject for university professors. Indeed, many of the great philosophers, like John Locke, David Hume and John Stuart Mill were active in the wider world, and earned their living from jobs which had nothing to do with philosophy or teaching it. But all of them thought and wrote about the big issues of life. And a great deal of what they have to say is stimulating and challenging; some of it is controversial: furthermore, it is relevant to our lives today.

Through studying philosophy, we can bring the thinking of the great philosophers of the western tradition to bear on the challenges, issues and questions we face today, as human beings, citizens, members of society, and individuals with relationships, responsibilities, concerns and uncertainties. We can learn from them, and their thoughts and ideas can help us to answer some of the questions we face: or, at least, help us to understand the questions more clearly!

My 'Briefly: 25 Great Philosophers from Plato to Sartre' (a brief history of 25 of the Great Philosophers of the western tradition (co-written with Dafydd and Megan Daniel) has just appeared in print and kindle form. My 'SCM AS/A2 Ethics and Moral Philosophy', which supports the teaching of A-level Religious Studies and Philosophy, but which will also be of interest to general readers who want an easy-to-follow guide to these fascinating and important areas of philosophy, was published in 2009. publish

Currently, I am writing A-level revision guides. The first, 'Briefly: AS/A2 Revision Guide - Ethics and Religious Ethics', has just been published on Kindle by David Mills Daniel (E-Books). A companion volume, 'Briefly: AS/A2 Revision Guide - Philosophy of Religion' will be published in 2015. I am finding publishing my own books exciting and enjoyable, and, in 2015-2016, plan to publish the first in a trilogy of novels that address a range of philosophical, ethical, educational and political issues, and an introduction to moral philosophy and ethics ("Mastering Moral Philosophy and Ethics").

Best wishes,

David

Dr David Mills Daniel