Samuel Alexander

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Samuel Alexander

Samuel Alexander (born January 6, 1859 in Sydney , † September 13, 1938 in Manchester ) was a British philosopher born in Australia .

Life

Samuel Alexander was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1859 as the third child of the saddler Samuel Alexander and his wife Eliza, née. Sloman born. Both parents were of Jewish descent. His father died before he was born. In 1863/64, Eliza Alexander moved to Melbourne with her children .

From 1866 to 1871 Samuel Alexander received private tuition, after which he came to Wesley College . Two years later, in 1873, he enrolled in art at the University of Melbourne , but he also attended lectures in mathematics, science, and natural philosophy . In 1877 he went to England to study mathematics and philosophy at Balliol College , Oxford .

His first major publication Moral Order and Progress (1889) was based on his award-winning dissertation . It enabled him in 1893 a call to the University of Manchester for a chair in philosophy. He lived and worked there until his retirement in 1924. Other important publications during this period are Space, Time and Deity (1920), based on the Gifford Lectures he gave (1916–1918), and a collection of various Essays on Ethics and Aesthetics entitled Beauty and the Other Forms of Value (1933). Samuel Alexander died in 1938 in Manchester, the city where he had lived most of his life.

In 1913 he was elected a member ( Fellow ) of the British Academy .

philosophy

Samuel Alexander's philosophy is based on a pronounced naturalistic approach. He was impressed by the scientific - especially the natural - knowledge gains of his time. These became the starting point for Alexander in order to develop a coherent and comprehensive scientific system for other areas as well. Furthermore, he dealt with a wide range of human experience and philosophical topics. In addition to essays on metaphysics and philosophy of science, he also left works on religion , art and ethics . His main concern was the development of a common language and methodology to order, relate and thus better understand all areas of human experience. For Alexander, the aim of philosophy is to depict every experience.

The technique of analogy is often used , with the help of which Alexander wants to transfer scientific findings of his time from the fields of physics and biology to other levels of existence such as morality and art.

Development and evolution

An essential assumption in Alexander's philosophy is the constant advancement to ever higher emergent "levels of existence". The layers known to man are space-time, physical-chemical matter, life and spirit. Each level contains properties (qualities) that cannot be found on the lower level. This theory also implies that humans with their spirit and values ​​are not the end point of this development. The world must therefore not - as in metaphysics since Kant - be thought of in terms of the spirit and thereby limited. Only when one introduces a hierarchy for these values ​​is the world “demystified” by the thought of materialistic evolution. But even if human values ​​could ultimately be explained with the aid of the movements of the atoms, they are not themselves “movements of the atoms”. In an effort to portray all forms of experience equally in his philosophy, Samuel Alexander rejects reductionism .

Evolutionary emergence

Alexander summarizes all drives and impulses that lead to science, to God or to art as the urge to develop to a higher level with the term nisus . This urge is inherent in every being and can also be described as the attraction of the higher level. Nisus thus becomes the unifying concept in Alexander's metaphysics. In this concept of evolutionary emergence , metaphysics and aesthetics are united. According to Alexander, artistic creation is based on instincts . On the other hand, aesthetics is the human form of the lavish creativity of the universe.

Works

Single issues
  • The basis of realism . 1914.
  • Curl . Thoemmes, Bristol 1993, ISBN 1-85506-181-3 (reprint of the London 1908 edition).
  • Spinoza and Time . Allan & Unwin, London 1921 (Arthur Davis Memorial Lecture; 4) ( online )
Work edition
  1. Moral Order and Progress. An analysis of ethical conceptions . (Reprint of the London 1889 edition).
  2. Space, Time, and Deity, Volume 1 . (Reprint of the London 1920 edition).
  3. Space, Time and Deity, Volume 2 . (Reprinted from the London 1927 edition).
  4. Beauty and other forms of value . (Reprinted from the London 1933 edition).
  5. Philosophical and literary pieces . (Reprint of the 1939 edition).
items
  • The idea of ​​value . Mind (NS) 1 (1892), 31 - 55

literature

  • Milton R. Konvitz: On the nature of value. The philosophy of Samuel Alexander. New York Kings Crown Press 1946
  • Alfred P. Stiernotte: God and Space-Time: Deity in the Philosophy of Samuel Alexander. Philosophical Library, New York 1954 ( online )
  • Bertram D. Brettschneider: The Philosophy of Samuel Alexander: Idealism in "Space, Time, and Deity". Humanities Press 1964
  • Michael A. Weinstein: Unity and Variety in the Philosophy of Samuel Alexander. Purdue University Press 1984
  • John W. McCarthy: The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander. Kessinger 2008, ISBN 978-1-4367-1261-3 .
  • Alexander, Samuel (1859-1938) . In: Douglas Pike (Ed.): Australian Dictionary of Biography . Volume 7. Melbourne University Press, Carlton (Victoria) 1979, ISBN 0-522-84108-2 (English).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Deceased Fellows. British Academy, accessed April 29, 2020 .
  2. ^ John W. McCarthy: The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander. Kessinger Publishing , 2008, p. 3ff.
  3. ↑ Timothy O'Connor: Emergent Properties , in: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  4. ^ John W. McCarthy: The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander. Kessinger, 2008, p. 11.
  5. ^ John W. McCarthy: The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander. Kessinger, 2008, p. 19.
  6. ^ John W. McCarthy: The Naturalism of Samuel Alexander. Kessinger, 2008, p. 17.
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, Samuel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH January 6, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH Sydney
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1938
Place of death Manchester