Hardie recollects his only meeting with BR which took place in Oxford on 3 June 1931. BR was there to speak to the Oxford Labour Club on "Scientific Civilization". Afterward, he and others took BR to a hotel for refreshments. Left alone, Hardie did not know what to say and the two of them sat in silence.

Hardie refers to a polished account of an encounter with BR in C.E.M. Joad, A Year More or Less (1948), pp. 92-7. BR responded to Joad's review of History of Western Philosophy at the Aristotelian Society, 18 Feb. 1947.