biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1830–75)
|
| biography:
| Philosopher, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, USA. He studied mathematics and science at Harvard (1852), and then worked for the American Ephemerist and Nautical Almanac, until a legacy allowed him to retire (1872). He lived a simple, often melancholy bachelor's existence in Cambridge, where he associated with William James and C S Peirce as senior member of a discussion group ironically titled the Metaphysical Club. A stimulating conversationalist, he wrote scientific and philosophical essays in an empirical vein, most of which, including the significant ‘Evolution of Self-Consciousness’, appeared in the North American Review. He has been praised as anticipating 20th-c trends in philosophy, but he was overshadowed by James and others. He taught sporadically at Harvard (1870, 1874–5). |
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