John Banks: born 1945, England; emigrated to U.S. 1953; resided in upper New York State, southern California, Calgary (Alberta, Canada), and Victoria, British Columbia. Naturalized Canadian citizen.  Education: Los Angeles City College, Santa Ana College, University of California at Irvine; B.A.1967; University of Calgary, Ph.D.1974 (Philosophy of Language/Science). From 1972 to 1980 employed part-time in the University of Victoria Philosophy Department as a teaching assistant and marker, briefly as a sessional lecturer.

    I chose to settle in Victoria rather than to be a part-time (or unemployed) academic vagabond. Later, the efforts of myself and of a colleague to influence the policies of the University of Victoria administrators affecting sessional employees led to our being denied further employment - that is, the Director of the Continuing Education Department, who initially wished to employ us, told us that he had been informed from the "top" that we were not to be employed, and we were not. Since being blackballed, I have continued to do philosophy and write, of course. One of my major interests, since high school days, has been what might be called "practical ethics" and the various threats to independence of mind and the sovereignity of conscience. A public demonstration of this interest was The Integrity Project, a forum on the efforts of individuals in the arts and professions to maintain their integrity.

    The philosophy instructors who have most influenced the direction of my enquiries, though not my views, were Maria Reichenbach (1964), Daniel Dennett (1965-7), Gordon Greig (1967-71), and Morris Lazerowitz (1968).

    My main interest is metaphilosophy, particularly in regard to the philosophy of language, of literature, and of mind. My thesis (Reference and Reportage, 1973) focused on Frege, Russell, Quine, etc., and contended that overlooked subtleties of ordinary informal language - language which philosophers rely upon for the presenting of alleged problems and examples - effectively sabotage some of their most critical efforts at analysis.

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