James Frederick Ferrier
James Frederick Ferrier (16 June 1808 – 11 June 1864) was a Scottish metaphysical writer and philosopher. He introduced the word epistemology in philosophical English,[1] as well as coining agnoiology for the study of ignorance.[2]
Education and early writings
Ferrier was born at 15
In 1840 he is listed as an advocate living at 14 Carlton Street in the Stockbridge area of Edinburgh.[5]
In 1842 he was appointed professor of
Family
James Ferrier married his cousin, Margaret Anne Wilson, daughter of his mother's brother, the writer John Wilson, who wrote under the pseudonym Christopher North.[7] His younger brother was named John Wilson Ferrier.
Ferrier had five children, one of whom became the wife of Sir Alexander Grant.[4] He was also the great-great-grandfather of Ludovic Kennedy.
He died in
Early career
Ferrier's first contribution to metaphysics was a series of articles in Blackwood's Magazine (1838–1839), entitled An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness. In these he condemns previous philosophers for ignoring in their psychological investigations the fact of consciousness, which is the distinctive feature of man, and confining their observation to the so-called states of the mind.[4] He argues as follows:
Consciousness is manifest only when the man has used the word with full knowledge of what it means. This notion he must originate within himself. Consciousness cannot spring from the states which are its object, for it is in antagonism to them. It originates in the will, which in the act of consciousness puts the "I" in the place of our sensations. Morality, conscience, and responsibility are necessary results of consciousness.[4]
These articles were succeeded by a number of others, of which the most important were The Crisis of Modern Speculation (1841), Berkeley and Idealism (1842), and an important examination of Hamilton's edition of
Later writings
Ferrier's matured philosophical doctrines find expression in the Institutes of Metaphysic: The Theory of Knowing and Being (1854), in which he claims to have met the twofold obligation resting on every system of philosophy, that it should be reasoned and true. His method is that of
Self-evident truths concerning knowing and the known are discussed in the Institutes of Metaphysic (Ferrier is thought to have coined the term epistemology in this work, p. 46). It explains that the fact that any intelligence, in addition to knowing whatever it knows, must as the ground or condition of its knowledge have some cognizance of itself as the basis of the whole philosophical system. In addition, the only possible kind of knowable is one which is both known of an object and known by a subject (Object + Subject, or Thing + Intelligence). This leads to the conclusion that the only independent universe which any mind can think of is the universe in synthesis with some other mind or ego.[4]
The leading contradiction which is corrected in the Agnoiology or Theory of Ignorance claims that there can be an ignorance of that of which there can be no knowledge. It is corrected by appealing to the fact that Ignorance is a defect, and argues that there is no defect in not knowing what cannot be known by any intelligence (for example, that two and two make five), and therefore there can be an ignorance only of that of which there can be a knowledge, that is, of some-object-plus-some-subject. Therefore, the knowable alone is the ignorable. Ferrier lays special claim to originality for this division of the Institutes.[4]
The Ontology or Theory of Being forms a discussion of the origin of knowledge, in which Ferrier traces all the perplexities and errors of philosophers to the assumption of the absolute existence of matter. The conclusion arrived at is that the only true real and independent existences are minds-together-with-that-which-they-apprehend, and that the one strictly necessary absolute existence is a supreme and infinite and everlasting mind in synthesis with all things.[4]
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica adjudges Ferrier's works as remarkable for their unusual charm and simplicity of style, qualities which are especially noticeable in the Lectures on Greek Philosophy, one of the best introductions on the subject in the English language.[4]
A complete edition of his philosophical writings was published in 1875, with a memoir by
References
- ^ "Epistemology". Oxford English Dictionary (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press. 2014. The word is used for the first time in his book, Institutes of Metaphysics, where he also distinguishes it from ontology, and states: "This section of the science is properly termed the epistemology - the doctrine or theory of knowing, just as ontology is the doctrine or theory of being." See Third Edition, Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1875, Introduction, §55, p. 48. See also Epistemology#Etymology.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica. Vol. 1 (14 ed.). 1930. p. 351. See also Institutes of Metaphysics Section II: THE AGNOIOLOGY, OR THEORY OF IGNORANCE, p. 405f.
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1810/11
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Chisholm 1911, p. 288.
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office directory 1840
- ^ Edinburgh Post Office Directory 1844
- ^ "Heriot Row History".
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferrier, James Frederick". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 287–288.
External links
- James Frederick Ferrier, an 1899 book in the Elizabeth Sanderson Haldane.
- James Frederick Ferrier, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
- Extract from Ferrier's Scottish Philosophy the Old and the New of 1856
