Chauncey Wright
Chauncey Wright (September 10, 1830 – September 12, 1875) was an American
Biography
Wright was born in
In 1870-71 he lectured on
In 1872, Wright helped found The Metaphysical Club with other Harvard intellectuals such as Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. His views on Darwinism played a significant role in shaping the ideas of the other members of the club.[6]
Religiously, Wright was an agnostic, arguing that we should suspend judgment on the existence of God because there is no firm evidence either way.[7] William James's famous will-to-believe argument was partly aimed at Wright's brand of agnosticism.[8] In ethics, he embraced utilitarianism, agreeing with John Stuart Mill that pleasures differ in quality as well as quantity. He was a staunch critic of Herbert Spencer's attempt to extend Darwinism into a law of cosmic and social progress. Like Mill and Auguste Comte, Wright embraced a positivistic approach to science that rejects the possibility (or even meaningfulness) of metaphysics.[9] His claim that scientific principles are "working hypotheses" influenced John Dewey and other later pragmatists. Wright's claim that science is metaphysically neutral (being uncommitted to naturalism, idealism, or any other general philosophical worldview or ontology) is seen by some as Wright's central contribution to philosophy.[10]
His essays were collected and published, with a biographical sketch, by Charles Eliot Norton in 1877, and his Letters were edited and privately printed at Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1878 by James Bradley Thayer.[2]
Publications
- By Wright
- (1857) "The Winds and the Weather" (review of books on physical geography and climatology, accompanied by some philosophical observations), Proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Eprint. Word DOC Eprint.
- (1871) Darwinism: Being an Examination of Mr. St. George Mivart's 'Genesis of Species'. North American Review. London: John Murray.
- (1878) Philosophical Discussions: With a Biographical Sketch of the Author by Charles Eliot Norton, Henry Holt and Company, New York. Google Books Eprint.
- (1878) Letters of Chauncey Wright: With Some Account of His Life by James Bradley Thayer, privately printed, Press of John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, MA. Google Books Eprint.
- (2016) The Collected Works and Correspondence of Chauncey Wright. Electronic Edition. In the Past Masters series.
- On Wright
- Fiske, John, "Chauncey Wright" (written December 1876), Darwinism and other Essays (London and New York: MacMillan and Co., 1879), pp. 78–109. Google Books Eprint.
See also
Notes
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 3.
- ^ a b Chisholm 1911.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 14.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 29.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 30.
- ^ De Groot 2015, note 2
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 31.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 48.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 91.
- ^ Madden 1963, p. 92.
Sources
- De Groot, Jean (Spring 2015). "Chauncey Wright". In Edward N. Zalta (ed.). The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Madden, Edward H. (1963). Chauncey Wright and the Foundations of Pragmatism. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Attribution
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Wright, Chauncey". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 846. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Further reading
- Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1889). . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. New York: D. Appleton.
- Flower, Elizabeth and Murray G. Murphey, A History of Philosophy in America, Vol. 2. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1977.
- James, William, 1875, "Chauncey Wright", Nation, 21: 194.
- Menand, Louis, 2001, The Metaphysical Club. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.