Alexander Bain (philosopher)
Alexander Bain (born June 11, 1818 in Aberdeen , † September 18, 1903 in Aberdeen) was a Scottish philosopher , psychologist and educator .
Alexander Bain attended Gilcomston School in Aberdeen and in his spare time helped his father - a former soldier who worked as a weaver after his discharge from military service - with weaving. At school his good performance was noticed by a teacher who also taught at Marischal College, which later became the University of Aberdeen . Thanks to his sponsorship, Bain was accepted into Marischal College in 1836, at the age of 18 . At the university he worked equally with mathematics , physics , natural philosophy and moral philosophy , but continued to support his father in weaving. Towards the end of his studies he began to write articles on technical topics for the London and Westminster Review . At this time he made the acquaintance of John Stuart Mill , whose empirical teachings influenced him considerably and with whom he remained friends until his death.
After completing his master's degree , he became Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Anderson's University in Glasgow in 1845 . In 1848 he moved to London , where he was employed under Edwin Chadwick on the Board of Health . In 1860 he went back to Aberdeen, where he filled the newly created Regius Professorship for logic at the university and taught logic and - as was customary in the 1860s - English . The English grammar he wrote and his commitment to methodologically well-thought-out English teaching in Scottish schools led to a modernization of the subject's didactics.
Alexander Bain is regarded as an early advocate of a scientific psychology that traces subjective experience and all knowledge back to sensory impressions and not to purely internal processes (i.e. not to introspection ). Bain, along with Mill and others, is considered to be one of the founders of the Anglo-Scottish school of association psychology .
Works (selection)
- The Early Life of James Mill. In: Mind , Volume 1, No. 1, 1876, pp. 97-116
- Spencer's "The Principles of Sociology". In: Mind , Volume 1, No. 1, 1876, pp. 128-131
- Mr. GH Lewes on the Postulates of Experience. In: Mind , Volume, No. 1, 1876, p. 148
- Pleasure and pain . In: Mind (New Series), Volume 1, No. 2, pp. 161–187, doi: 10.1093 / mind / 1.2.161
literature
- Henry Rutgers Marshall : Prof. Bain on Pleasure and Pain. In: Mind (New Series), Volume 2, No. 5, 1893, pp. 89-93, excerpt
Web links
- Works by Bain at Archive.org
- Literature by and about Alexander Bain in the catalog of the German National Library
Individual evidence
- ^ William L. Davidson: Professor Bain. Obituary in: Mind , Volume 13, No. 49, 1904 pp. 151–155, full text (PDF), in English
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bain, Alexander |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Scottish philosopher and educator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 11, 1818 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aberdeen |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 18, 1903 |
| Place of death | Aberdeen |