Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17
Bloomsbury Square,
London. It resolved "to constitute a society of about twenty and to include ladies; the society to meet fortnightly, on Mondays at 8 o'clock, at the rooms of the Spelling Reform Association…" The rules of the society stipulated: According to
H. Wildon Carr, in choosing a name for the society, it was: The society's first president was
Shadworth H. Hodgson. He was president for fourteen years from 1880 until 1894, when he proposed
Dr. Bernard Bosanquet as his replacement. Professor Alan Willard Brown noted in 1947 that '[The Society]'s members were not all men of established intellectual position. It welcomed young minds just out of university as well as older amateur philosophers with serious interests and purposes. But many distinguished men were faithful members, and not the least virtue of the society has remained, even to the present day, the opportunity it affords for different intellectual generations to meet in an atmosphere of reasoned and responsible discussion.'." The society continues to meet fortnightly at the
University of London's
Senate House to hear and discuss philosophical papers from all philosophical traditions. The current President (2016–2017) is
Tim Crane, a Professor of Philosophy at
University of Cambridge. Its other work includes giving grants to support the organisation of academic conferences in philosophy, and, with
Oxford University Press, the production of the 'Lines of Thought' series of philosophical monographs. In the 1960s,
Ved Mehta dubbed the "exclusive" Aristotelian Society the "
crème de la crème of all philosophical societies." ==Annual conference==