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[[image:Dugald_Stewart.jpg|thumb|200px|Dugald Stewart.]] | [[image:Dugald_Stewart.jpg|thumb|200px|Dugald Stewart.]] | ||
| − | '''Dugald Stewart''' ( | + | '''Dugald Stewart''' ([November 22, 1753 - June 11, 1828), was a [[Scotland|Scottish]] [[philosopher]], was born in [[Edinburgh]]. His father, Matthew Stewart (1715 - 1785), was professor of [[mathematics]] in the [[University of Edinburgh]] . |
| + | For his father, Dugald_Stewart deputized,and also he became pupil of Adam Ferguson(1723-1815).When he listened to the lecture of Thomas Reid (1710-1796) in Glasgow ,he was convinced that mind is able to be studied scientifically. | ||
| + | Dugald Stewart became ,after Thomas Reid ,the most importamt figure in the Common Sense School. | ||
| + | He influenced on Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy in France. | ||
| + | Together with Reid and Cousin ,Dugald Stewart built the Scottish tradition the ruling philosophy in America for half a century. | ||
| + | |||
==Life and works== | ==Life and works== | ||
| − | Dugald Stewart was educated in Edinburgh at the | + | Dugald Stewart was bon in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 22, 1753, the son of Matthew Stewart (1715 – 1785), a mathematics professo at the University of Edinburgh. He was educated in Edinburgh at the High School of Edinburgh and the University, where he read mathematics and [[moral philosophy]] under [[Adam Ferguson]]. In 1771, in hopes of gaining a Snell exhibition and proceeding to [[university of Oxford|Oxford]] to study for the English Church, he went to the University of Glasgow, where he attended the classes of [[Thomas Reid]]. He adopted Reid’s theory of [[morality]], which he later popularized using his admirable style and academic eloquence. In Glasgow Stewart boarded in the same house with [[Archibald Alison (Scottish author)|Archibald Alison]], author of the ''Essay on Taste'', and a lasting friendship sprang up between them. |
| − | After a single session in Glasgow, Dugald Stewart, at the age of nineteen, was summoned by his father, whose health was beginning to fail, to conduct the | + | After a single session in Glasgow, Dugald Stewart, at the age of nineteen, was summoned by his father, whose health was beginning to fail, to conduct the mathematics classes in the University of Edinburgh. After acting as his father's deputy for three years, he was elected professor of mathematics in conjunction with him in 1775. Three years later Adam Ferguson was appointed secretary to the commissioners sent out to the [[13 colonies|American colonies]], and at his urgent request Stewart lectured as his substitute. During the session 1778 - 1779, in addition to his mathematical work, he delivered an original course of lectures on morality. In 1783 he married Helen Bannatyne, who died in 1787, leaving an only son, Colonel Matthew Stewart. In his early years he was influenced by [[Lord Monboddo]], with whom he corresponded. |
| − | In | + | In 1785 Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the chair of moral philosophy, which he filled for twenty-five years, making it a center of intellectual and moral influence. Young men from all over [[England]], and even from the Continent and America were attracted by his reputation. Among his pupils were Sir [[Walter Scott]], [[Francis Jeffrey]], [[Henry Thomas Cockburn]], [[Francis Homer]], [[Sydney Smith]], [[Henry Peter Brougham|Lord Brougham]], Dr [[Thomas Brown (philosopher)|Thomas Brown]], [[James Mill]], Sir [[James Mackintosh]] and Sir [[Archibald Alison]]. The course on moral philosophy embraced, besides [[ethics]], lectures on [[political philosophy]] and the theory of government, and from 1800 onwards a separate course of lectures was delivered on political economy, then almost unknown as a science to the general public. Stewart's enlightened political teaching, during the reaction succeeding the [[French Revolution]], drew upon him the undeserved suspicion that he disapproved of the constitution. Stewart spent the summers of 1788 and 1789 in France, where he met [[Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard|Suard]], [[Degbrando]], and [[Guillaume Thomas François Raynal|Raynal]], and learned to sympathize with the revolutionary movement. |
| − | In | + | In 1790 Stewart married a Miss Cranstoun. His second wife was well-born and accomplished, and he was in the habit of submitting all of hiw writing to her criticism.. They had a son and a daughter, but the son's death in 1809 was a severe blow to his father, and brought about his retirement from the active duties of his chair. |
| − | Similar memoirs of Robertson the historian and of Reid were | + | Stewart began his writing career as a student in Glasgow, where he wrote an essay on ''Dreaming''. In 1792 he published the first volume of the ''Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind;'' the second volume appeared in 1814, the third in 1827. In 1793 he printed a textbook, ''Outlines of Moral Philosophy'', which went through many editions; and in the same year he read his account of the ''Life and Writings of [[Adam Smith]]'' before the Royal Society of Edinburgh. |
| + | |||
| + | Similar memoirs of Robertson the historian and of Reid were later presented before the Royal Society and appear in his published works. In 1805 Stewart published pamphlets defending Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Leslie against charges of unorthodoxy made by the presbytery of Edinburgh. In 1806 he received, in lieu of a pension, the nominal office of the writership of the ''Edinburgh Gazette,'' with a salary of three hundred pounds. When the shock of his son's death made him unable to lecture during the session of 1809-1810, his place was taken, at his own request, by Dr. Thomas Brown, who in 1810 was appointed conjoint professor. On the death of Brown in 1820, Stewart retired from the professorship, which was conferred upon [[John Wilson]], better known as "Christopher North." From 1809 onwards Stewart lived mainly at Kinneil House, Linhithgowshire, which was placed at his disposal by the [[Archibald Hamilton, 9th Duke of Hamilton|Duke of Hamilton]]. In 1810 he published the ''Philosophical Essays'', and the first (1811) and second parts (1821) of a "Dissertation" written for the ''Encyclopaedia Britannica Supplement,'' entitled "A General View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy since the Revival of Letters." | ||
[[Image:DugaldStewartMonument.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Dugald Stewart Monument]], Edinburgh]] | [[Image:DugaldStewartMonument.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Dugald Stewart Monument]], Edinburgh]] | ||
| − | In | + | In 1822 he was struck with paralysis, but recovered sufficiently to enable him to resume his studies. In 1827 he published the third volume of the ''Elements'', and in 1828, a few weeks before his death, ''The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers.'' He died in Edinburgh, where a [[Dugald Stewart Monument|monument]] to his memory was erected on Calton Hill. |
| + | |||
| + | |||
| + | == Thought and Works == | ||
| + | |||
| + | Stewart Dugald belongs to the current of British philosophy which was especially impacted by the Scottish school of Common Sense, founded by Thomas Reid. The British philosophical movement led by Locke, Berkeley and Hume challenged the rationalism of Descartes and developed a system of thought, called empiricism (from the Greek word “empeiria” meaning “experience”), which implied general skepticism. Thomas Reid has been treated with indifference in the history of philosophy, and has only recently been recognized as an important figure in the modern analytical thought. Thomas Reid and David Hume were both born in Scotland and were active at the same time. At first Reid was an indoctrinated adherent of the Irish idealist, George Berkeley (1685-1753). Reid studied and finally rejected the thought of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, asserting that their theory of ideas was not backed up by evidence. He also asserted that it failed to accomplish the purpose for which it was developed, because it did not address, in principle, the question of the accuracy of perception. Reid insisted that Hume’s “Treatise” had drowned all in one universal deluge. The main problem was the concept of “hypothesis.” Reid refuted the term hypothesis with all his energy, enabling to protect the fundamental conceptual system of common sense against what he regarded as the eroding skepticism of Hume. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Stewart Dugald followed Reid in insisting that any thought which conflicts with the principles of common sense must be untrue. Stewart Dugald went further in setting the prerequisite that a philosophical thesis must not vary the meanings of concepts as they were understood in everyday life. Stewart Dugald recognized in detail the epistemic resemblances between Reid and Immanuel Kant; however he chose Reid because he wanted to keep away from Kant’s differentiation between phenomena and noumena. Stewart supported Reid’s theories of the principles of common sense, but he considered the terminology “common sense” as too uncertain and leading to misapprehension. Stewart admitted the idea of principles, but he thought the word “principles” tended to mislead because we cannot make any judgments or inferences from them which will amplify human knowledge. Stewart rejected Reid’s realistic conception of universals and supplied his own nominalistic option. | ||
| + | |||
| + | It is obvious that Stewart tried to be more careful than Reid; however basic points of his theory clearly come from Reid. In 1785 the common sense movement experienced a turning-point with the publication of Reid’s first essays and the fourth edition of “Inquiry.” Stewart Dugald began to lecture about Reid’s theory at the University of Edinburgh. By the 1790s the Reid- Stewart analytical method of psychology, epistemology and metaphysics, which used ordinary experience as its starting point, dominated in Scottish intellectual communities. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Stewart's philosophical views upheld Reid's psychological method and expounded the "common-sense" doctrine, which was attacked by the two Mills. Unconsciously, however, he fell away from the pure Scottish tradition and made concessions both to moderate empiricism and to the French ideologists ([[Pierre Laromiguière|Laromiguière]], [[Pierre Jean George Cabanis|Cabanis]] and [[Destutt de Tracy]]). It is important to notice the energy of his declaration against the argument of ontology, and also against [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac|Condillac]]'s sensationalism. [[Immanuel Kant|Kant]], he confessed, he could not understand. Perhaps his most valuable and original work is his theory of taste—the ''Philosophical Essays''. But his reputation rests more on his inspiring eloquence and the beauty of his style than on original work. | ||
| + | |||
| + | Stewart's works were edited in eleven volumes (1854 - 1858) by Sir [[William Hamilton]] and completed with a memoir by [[John Veitch]]. Matthew Stewart (his eldest son) wrote a life in ''Annual Biography and Obituary'' (1829), republished privately in 1838. | ||
| + | == References == | ||
| + | === Original Works === | ||
| + | |||
| + | *Stewart, Dugald. The philosophy of the active and moral powers of man. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005 | ||
| + | *Stewart, Dugald. Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind: Volume 1. Adamant Media Corporation (December 4, 2000 | ||
| + | *Stewart, Dugald; Hamilton, William (Editor); Haakonsen, Knud (Editor). The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart (Major Works) 11 volume set Thoemmes Continuum; Facsim.of 1854-60 Ed edition, 1994. | ||
| + | |||
| + | === Secondary Sources === | ||
| − | + | *Bain, Alexander, Moral science: a compendium of ethics. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2006. | |
| + | *Bain, Alexander. Mental science; a compendium of psychology, and the history of philosophy, designed as a textbook for highschools and colleges. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005. | ||
| − | + | *McCosh, James. The Scottish Philosophy: Biographical, Expository And Critical From Hutcheson To Hamilton. Kessinger Publishing, 2004. | |
| + | *Stephen, Sir Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Thoemmes Press; Facsim.of 1902 Ed edition, 1997. | ||
==See also== | ==See also== | ||
Revision as of 13:42, 6 September 2006
Dugald Stewart ([November 22, 1753 - June 11, 1828), was a Scottish philosopher, was born in Edinburgh. His father, Matthew Stewart (1715 - 1785), was professor of mathematics in the University of Edinburgh . For his father, Dugald_Stewart deputized,and also he became pupil of Adam Ferguson(1723-1815).When he listened to the lecture of Thomas Reid (1710-1796) in Glasgow ,he was convinced that mind is able to be studied scientifically. Dugald Stewart became ,after Thomas Reid ,the most importamt figure in the Common Sense School. He influenced on Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy in France. Together with Reid and Cousin ,Dugald Stewart built the Scottish tradition the ruling philosophy in America for half a century.
Life and works
Dugald Stewart was bon in Edinburgh, Scotland on November 22, 1753, the son of Matthew Stewart (1715 – 1785), a mathematics professo at the University of Edinburgh. He was educated in Edinburgh at the High School of Edinburgh and the University, where he read mathematics and moral philosophy under Adam Ferguson. In 1771, in hopes of gaining a Snell exhibition and proceeding to Oxford to study for the English Church, he went to the University of Glasgow, where he attended the classes of Thomas Reid. He adopted Reid’s theory of morality, which he later popularized using his admirable style and academic eloquence. In Glasgow Stewart boarded in the same house with Archibald Alison, author of the Essay on Taste, and a lasting friendship sprang up between them.
After a single session in Glasgow, Dugald Stewart, at the age of nineteen, was summoned by his father, whose health was beginning to fail, to conduct the mathematics classes in the University of Edinburgh. After acting as his father's deputy for three years, he was elected professor of mathematics in conjunction with him in 1775. Three years later Adam Ferguson was appointed secretary to the commissioners sent out to the American colonies, and at his urgent request Stewart lectured as his substitute. During the session 1778 - 1779, in addition to his mathematical work, he delivered an original course of lectures on morality. In 1783 he married Helen Bannatyne, who died in 1787, leaving an only son, Colonel Matthew Stewart. In his early years he was influenced by Lord Monboddo, with whom he corresponded.
In 1785 Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the chair of moral philosophy, which he filled for twenty-five years, making it a center of intellectual and moral influence. Young men from all over England, and even from the Continent and America were attracted by his reputation. Among his pupils were Sir Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, Henry Thomas Cockburn, Francis Homer, Sydney Smith, Lord Brougham, Dr Thomas Brown, James Mill, Sir James Mackintosh and Sir Archibald Alison. The course on moral philosophy embraced, besides ethics, lectures on political philosophy and the theory of government, and from 1800 onwards a separate course of lectures was delivered on political economy, then almost unknown as a science to the general public. Stewart's enlightened political teaching, during the reaction succeeding the French Revolution, drew upon him the undeserved suspicion that he disapproved of the constitution. Stewart spent the summers of 1788 and 1789 in France, where he met Suard, Degbrando, and Raynal, and learned to sympathize with the revolutionary movement.
In 1790 Stewart married a Miss Cranstoun. His second wife was well-born and accomplished, and he was in the habit of submitting all of hiw writing to her criticism.. They had a son and a daughter, but the son's death in 1809 was a severe blow to his father, and brought about his retirement from the active duties of his chair.
Stewart began his writing career as a student in Glasgow, where he wrote an essay on Dreaming. In 1792 he published the first volume of the Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind; the second volume appeared in 1814, the third in 1827. In 1793 he printed a textbook, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, which went through many editions; and in the same year he read his account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith before the Royal Society of Edinburgh.
Similar memoirs of Robertson the historian and of Reid were later presented before the Royal Society and appear in his published works. In 1805 Stewart published pamphlets defending Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Leslie against charges of unorthodoxy made by the presbytery of Edinburgh. In 1806 he received, in lieu of a pension, the nominal office of the writership of the Edinburgh Gazette, with a salary of three hundred pounds. When the shock of his son's death made him unable to lecture during the session of 1809-1810, his place was taken, at his own request, by Dr. Thomas Brown, who in 1810 was appointed conjoint professor. On the death of Brown in 1820, Stewart retired from the professorship, which was conferred upon John Wilson, better known as "Christopher North." From 1809 onwards Stewart lived mainly at Kinneil House, Linhithgowshire, which was placed at his disposal by the Duke of Hamilton. In 1810 he published the Philosophical Essays, and the first (1811) and second parts (1821) of a "Dissertation" written for the Encyclopaedia Britannica Supplement, entitled "A General View of the Progress of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy since the Revival of Letters."
In 1822 he was struck with paralysis, but recovered sufficiently to enable him to resume his studies. In 1827 he published the third volume of the Elements, and in 1828, a few weeks before his death, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers. He died in Edinburgh, where a monument to his memory was erected on Calton Hill.
Thought and Works
Stewart Dugald belongs to the current of British philosophy which was especially impacted by the Scottish school of Common Sense, founded by Thomas Reid. The British philosophical movement led by Locke, Berkeley and Hume challenged the rationalism of Descartes and developed a system of thought, called empiricism (from the Greek word “empeiria” meaning “experience”), which implied general skepticism. Thomas Reid has been treated with indifference in the history of philosophy, and has only recently been recognized as an important figure in the modern analytical thought. Thomas Reid and David Hume were both born in Scotland and were active at the same time. At first Reid was an indoctrinated adherent of the Irish idealist, George Berkeley (1685-1753). Reid studied and finally rejected the thought of Locke, Berkeley and Hume, asserting that their theory of ideas was not backed up by evidence. He also asserted that it failed to accomplish the purpose for which it was developed, because it did not address, in principle, the question of the accuracy of perception. Reid insisted that Hume’s “Treatise” had drowned all in one universal deluge. The main problem was the concept of “hypothesis.” Reid refuted the term hypothesis with all his energy, enabling to protect the fundamental conceptual system of common sense against what he regarded as the eroding skepticism of Hume.
Stewart Dugald followed Reid in insisting that any thought which conflicts with the principles of common sense must be untrue. Stewart Dugald went further in setting the prerequisite that a philosophical thesis must not vary the meanings of concepts as they were understood in everyday life. Stewart Dugald recognized in detail the epistemic resemblances between Reid and Immanuel Kant; however he chose Reid because he wanted to keep away from Kant’s differentiation between phenomena and noumena. Stewart supported Reid’s theories of the principles of common sense, but he considered the terminology “common sense” as too uncertain and leading to misapprehension. Stewart admitted the idea of principles, but he thought the word “principles” tended to mislead because we cannot make any judgments or inferences from them which will amplify human knowledge. Stewart rejected Reid’s realistic conception of universals and supplied his own nominalistic option.
It is obvious that Stewart tried to be more careful than Reid; however basic points of his theory clearly come from Reid. In 1785 the common sense movement experienced a turning-point with the publication of Reid’s first essays and the fourth edition of “Inquiry.” Stewart Dugald began to lecture about Reid’s theory at the University of Edinburgh. By the 1790s the Reid- Stewart analytical method of psychology, epistemology and metaphysics, which used ordinary experience as its starting point, dominated in Scottish intellectual communities.
Stewart's philosophical views upheld Reid's psychological method and expounded the "common-sense" doctrine, which was attacked by the two Mills. Unconsciously, however, he fell away from the pure Scottish tradition and made concessions both to moderate empiricism and to the French ideologists (Laromiguière, Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy). It is important to notice the energy of his declaration against the argument of ontology, and also against Condillac's sensationalism. Kant, he confessed, he could not understand. Perhaps his most valuable and original work is his theory of taste—the Philosophical Essays. But his reputation rests more on his inspiring eloquence and the beauty of his style than on original work.
Stewart's works were edited in eleven volumes (1854 - 1858) by Sir William Hamilton and completed with a memoir by John Veitch. Matthew Stewart (his eldest son) wrote a life in Annual Biography and Obituary (1829), republished privately in 1838.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
Original Works
- Stewart, Dugald. The philosophy of the active and moral powers of man. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005
- Stewart, Dugald. Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind: Volume 1. Adamant Media Corporation (December 4, 2000
- Stewart, Dugald; Hamilton, William (Editor); Haakonsen, Knud (Editor). The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart (Major Works) 11 volume set Thoemmes Continuum; Facsim.of 1854-60 Ed edition, 1994.
Secondary Sources
- Bain, Alexander, Moral science: a compendium of ethics. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2006.
- Bain, Alexander. Mental science; a compendium of psychology, and the history of philosophy, designed as a textbook for highschools and colleges. Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library, 2005.
- McCosh, James. The Scottish Philosophy: Biographical, Expository And Critical From Hutcheson To Hamilton. Kessinger Publishing, 2004.
- Stephen, Sir Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. Thoemmes Press; Facsim.of 1902 Ed edition, 1997.
See also
- Scottish School of Common Sense.
External links
- John J. O'Connor and Edmund F. Robertson. Dugald Stewart at the MacTutor archive
References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
de:Dugald Stewart fr:Dugald Stewart pt:Dugald Stewart sk:Dugald Stewart
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