Letter: Anthony Kenny obituary

Michael J Walsh writes: Walsh told a story of his tutelage in Rome under Frederick Copleston

Your very sympathetic obituary of Anthony Kenny remarks that he was taught in Rome by another historian of philosophy, Frederick Copleston.

When I asked Kenny what he thought of Copleston’s extensive account of the subject, he refused to offer a comment, but told the story of how Copleston, obliged at the Pontifical Gregorian University to lecture in Latin, even on British analytic philosophy, set numerous British authors as required reading.

This drove from the room all except those for whom English was their native tongue. That achieved, the Gregorian’s rubrics allowed him to continue in English.