Stuart, Dugald

Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) - Scottish philosopher, representative of the school of "common sense".

He was raised by his father, a professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, who aroused his interest in the study of mathematics from early childhood. At home, he received a good preparation for the study of the humanities. He entered the University of Edinburgh very young and immediately attracted the attention of Stevenson, a professor of logic, and Adam Ferguson , a professor of moral philosophy.

In 1771 he moved to Glasgow and here he became acquainted with the philosophy of the founder of the school of "common sense" Reed . Upon the death of his father, he received his department of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh. In 1778 he occupied the department of moral philosophy. Moreover, he lectured on a wide variety of subjects: astronomy, physics, mathematics, Greek, rhetoric, and political economy. Honorary Member of St. Petersburg. AN since 10.29.1795.

In 1810, he entrusted the lecturing of philosophy to his student, Thomas Brown .

Not being an original philosophical mind, Stewart stood out mainly as a talented lecturer and popularizer of Reed's teachings. In order to understand the significance of his work, one must also take into account the conditions under which in England occurred at the end of the 18th century. development of philosophical problems. This time coincides with the era of the French Revolution . In English society there was a reaction against the "french principles"; censorship, espionage and arrests flourished. Free philosophical thought was completely suppressed. This was favored, starting from the nineties, by the disunity of the British from the continent, as a result of which the most educated English for a long time the philosophical revolution carried out in 1781 by the appearance of the Critique of Pure Reason remained completely unknown. Stewart believed that we can not know matter or spirit per se, but we must accept on faith an independent existence of one and the other; thus, he can be called a hypothetical dualist.

The basis of our knowledge lies in some provisions that are unprovable, but must be taken on faith; they correspond to what Reed called natural suggestions. Stewart calls them the fundamental laws of faith: these include:

• mathematical axioms;
• truths, metaphysical or transcendental, associated with consciousness, perception, memory and thinking; such are the identity of the person, the constancy of the laws of nature, the reality of the external world.

Stewart somewhat shortened Reed's long list of self-evident truths, but did not explain the incompleteness of this list. In general, he felt the need for a new formulation of the questions of the theory of knowledge, which would make it possible to overcome Hume's skepticism; but he is not able to solve the problem beyond his strength.

The question raised by Kant about how synthetic judgments are possible in mathematics was also of concern to Stuart. However, from the fact of the synthetics of mathematical knowledge, he was unable to draw the fruitful conclusions that led Kant to the restructuring of the whole theory of knowledge. Stuart condemned the critical spirit of his era, seeing in it the echoes of scholastic debate about the foundations of knowledge; these foundations, in his opinion, are themselves obvious and do not need to be verified.

Stuart's main work: “Elements of the philosophy of the human mind” (1st vol. - 1792, 2nd — 1814, 3rd — 1827), without presenting a well-thought-out and original philosophical system, is replete with some interesting psychological remarks. He was keenly interested in empirical psychology ; in his writings one can find many interesting psychological observations. He also wrote: “Outlines of moral philosophy” (1795) and “Philosophical Essays” (1810).