William Hamilton (philosopher)

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William Hamilton

Sir William Stirling Hamilton, 9th Baronet (born March 8, 1788 in Glasgow , † May 6, 1856 in Edinburgh ) was a Scottish philosopher .

Life

His father Dr. William Hamilton, a respected anatomy teacher, died in 1790 at the age of 36. The boy grew up in Scotland (with the exception of two years in London) and went to Balliol College in Oxford in 1807 . His training goal was originally medicine. After graduating as BA and MA (1814), however, he turned to different fields of knowledge and thus broadened his horizon. He gradually developed his philosophical system. Two visits to Germany introduced him to the philosophy there. In 1821 he became professor of history in Edinburgh; a year after the death of his adored mother (1827) he married his cousin, Janet Marshall.

From 1816 he claimed the hereditary title of nobility of 9th Baronet , of Preston in the County of Haddington as the oldest living member of the Hamilton of Preston family . This title, created in 1673 in the Baronetage of Nova Scotia, had been inactive since 1701 and had been due to him since the death of his second uncle Robert Hamilton (1754–1799) de iure . The title was finally formally confirmed to him in 1834.

In 1829 he published his treatise on the "Philosophy of the Unconditioned" - a critique of Auguste Comte and the first in a series of articles to appear in the Edinburgh Review . In 1836 he was elected to the chair of logic and metaphysics in Edinburgh . In the following two decades until his death, he had a major influence on the younger Scottish philosophers. Around 1836 he also began editing Thomas Reid's writings (published in 1846). In 1844 he suffered a stroke. For a long time he had already worked on an essay on “a new analysis of logical forms”, the results of which were ultimately incorporated into his Lectures on Logic . He also spent some time preparing a biography of Martin Luther, but it did not grow beyond manuscript form. In 1852/53 his contributions to the Edinburgh Review appeared in aggregate under the title Discussions in Philosophy, Literature and Education. In 1854/55 he got a new edition of Dugald Stewart's works . In 1854 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Soon after the end of the winter semester 1855/56, in which he was still reading, he fell ill and died in Edinburgh.

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Hamilton was praised by his successors less for an innovative approach to contemporary philosophy than for his great ability to stimulate critical thinking in his students. He brought German philosophy - especially that of Immanuel Kant - to the British Isles, where it had previously led a niche existence. He also studied the Aristotle Commentaries and Scholastic philosophy in depth - an innovation at a time when these were still being degraded as dull medieval. He was exceptionally well-read and had a very broad knowledge. This was also borne out by his library, which eventually became part of the Glasgow University Library.

He took the view that philosophy is not suitable for gaining absolute knowledge, but rather that it belongs in the field of academic mental exercises. Since he viewed logic as a purely formal science, he considered it extremely unscientific to treat the formal and the factual conditions of our knowledge together.

Last work

Posthumously published Lectures on Metaphysics and Logic and Additional Notes to Reid's Works, from Sir W. Hamilton's Manuscripts.

Quote

"Mentally organize your thoughts from beginning to end before you think of the words."

- Sir William Hamilton

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Individual evidence

  1. ^ Charles Mosley: Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knightage . Volume 3, Burke's Peerage (Genealogical Books) Ltd, Wilmington 2003, p. 3749.
  2. ^ Quote from the author Sir William Hamilton. Retrieved February 29, 2016 .

Web links

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personal data
SURNAME Hamilton, William
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hamilton, Sir William, 9th Baronet (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Scottish philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH March 8, 1788
PLACE OF BIRTH Glasgow
DATE OF DEATH May 6, 1856
Place of death Edinburgh