![Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones - John Lavery 1916](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Emily_Elizabeth_Constance_Jones_-_John_Lavery_1916.jpg)
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones (19 February 1848 – 9 April 1922) known as Constance Jones or E.E. Constance Jones, was an English philosopher and educator. She worked in
logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
and
ethics
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
.
Life and career
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones was born at Langstone Court,
Llangarron
Llangarron is a small village and Civil parishes in England, civil parish in southwest Herefordshire within of both Ross-on-Wye (Herefordshire, England) and Monmouth (Monmouthshire, Wales). The population of the civil parish at the United Kingd ...
,
Herefordshire
Herefordshire () is a county in the West Midlands of England, governed by Herefordshire Council. It is bordered by Shropshire to the north, Worcestershire to the east, Gloucestershire to the south-east, and the Welsh counties of Monmouthshire ...
, to John Jones and his wife, Emily, daughter of Thomas Oakley JP, of
Monmouthshire
Monmouthshire ( cy, Sir Fynwy) is a county in the south-east of Wales. The name derives from the historic county of the same name; the modern county covers the eastern three-fifths of the historic county. The largest town is Abergavenny, with ...
. She was the eldest of ten children. Constance was mostly tutored at home. She spent her early teenage years with her family in
Cape Town
Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second largest ...
,
South Africa
South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the southernmost country in Africa. It is bounded to the south by of coastline that stretch along the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans; to the north by the neighbouring countri ...
, and when they returned to England in 1865 she attended a small school, Miss Robinson's, in Cheltenham, for a year.
She was coached for the entrance examination for
Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status ...
by Miss
Alice Grüner, a former student of
Newnham at her home in
Sydenham Sydenham may refer to:
Places Australia
* Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney
** Sydenham railway station, Sydney
* Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...
, Kent. She went up to Girton in 1875 where, prompted by having read
Henry Fawcett
Henry Fawcett (26 August 1833 – 6 November 1884) was a British academic, politician, statesman and economist.
Background and education
Henry Fawcett was born in Salisbury, and educated at King's College School and the University of Cambri ...
's ''Political Economy'' (1863) and
Mill
Mill may refer to:
Science and technology
*
* Mill (grinding)
* Milling (machining)
* Millwork
* Textile mill
* Steel mill, a factory for the manufacture of steel
* List of types of mill
* Mill, the arithmetic unit of the Analytical Engine early ...
's ''
Logic
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
'' (1843), she chose the Moral Sciences
Tripos
At the University of Cambridge, a Tripos (, plural 'Triposes') is any of the examinations that qualify an undergraduate for a bachelor's degree or the courses taken by a student to prepare for these. For example, an undergraduate studying mathe ...
. However, she almost immediately had to withdraw in order to look after the aunt with whom she then lived. Her undergraduate career was considerably interrupted because the education of her younger brothers took precedence over her own, but despite this in 1880 she was awarded a first class in the Moral Sciences Tripos.
She returned to Girton in 1884 as a research student and a resident lecturer in Moral Sciences. Having studied with
Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philos ...
,
James Ward James Ward may refer to:
Military
*James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1864) (1833–?), American Civil War sailor
* James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1890) (1854–1901), American Indian Wars soldier
*James Allen Ward (1919–1941), New Zealand pilot and Vi ...
and
J.N. Keynes
John Neville Keynes ( ; 31 August 1852 – 15 November 1949) was a British economist and father of John Maynard Keynes.
Biography
Born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, Keynes was the child of John Keynes (1805–1878) and his wife Anna Maynard Neville ...
, she completed the translation of
Lotze
Lotze is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Hermann Lotze (1817–1881), German philosopher and logician
* Hiltrud Lotze (born 1958), German politician
See also
* Lotte (name)
Lotte is a female given name. It is a diminutive ...
's ''Mikrokosmus'' initiated by Elizabeth Hamilton. She also edited
Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philos ...
's ''
Methods of Ethics'' (1901) and his ''Ethics of
Green
Green is the color between cyan and yellow on the visible spectrum. It is evoked by light which has a dominant wavelength of roughly 495570 Nanometre, nm. In subtractive color systems, used in painting and color printing, it is created by ...
,
Spencer, and
Martineau
Martineau is a surname. It is of French origin and may refer to:
* Alice Martineau (1972–2003), English pop singer and songwriter
* Alfred Albert Martineau (1859–1945), French Governor General
* Alfred Martineau (cricketer) (1868–1940), Engl ...
'' (1902); and wrote ''Elements of Logic'' (1890); ''A Primer of Logic'' (1905); ''A Primer of Ethics'' (1909); ''A New Law of Thought and its Logical Bearing'' (1911); ''Girton College'' (1913). She was Mistress of
Girton College, Cambridge
Girton College is one of the 31 constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge. The college was established in 1869 by Emily Davies and Barbara Bodichon as the first women's college in Cambridge. In 1948, it was granted full college status ...
, from 1903 until her retirement in 1916.
Jones was one of the first women to join the
Aristotelian Society
The Aristotelian Society for the Systematic Study of Philosophy, more generally known as the Aristotelian Society, is a philosophical society in London.
History
Aristotelian Society was founded at a meeting on 19 April 1880, at 17 Bloomsbury Squar ...
in 1892, serving on the Society's executive committee from 1914 to 1916. She was also the first woman recorded as having delivered a paper to the
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
The Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club, founded in October 1878, is a philosophy discussion group that meets weekly at the University of Cambridge during term time. Speakers are invited to present a paper with a strict upper time limit of 4 ...
. She spoke about
James Ward James Ward may refer to:
Military
*James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1864) (1833–?), American Civil War sailor
* James Ward (Medal of Honor, 1890) (1854–1901), American Indian Wars soldier
*James Allen Ward (1919–1941), New Zealand pilot and Vi ...
's ''Naturalism and Agnosticism'' on 1 December 1899, with the philosopher
Henry Sidgwick
Henry Sidgwick (; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was the Knightbridge Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Cambridge from 1883 until his death, and is best known in philos ...
chairing the meeting. Her views were regarded as original and influenced her colleagues. She spent her career developing the idea that
categorical proposition
In logic, a categorical proposition, or categorical statement, is a proposition that asserts or denies that all or some of the members of one category (the ''subject term'') are included in another (the ''predicate term''). The study of arguments ...
s are composed of a predicate and a subject related via identity or non-identity.
Philosophy
Constance Jones' most significant contribution to philosophy was in logic and she was widely regarded to be an authority in this area by her contemporaries.
Her major work is ''A New Law of Thought and its Logical Bearings'' (Cambridge, 1911). She was chiefly concerned with the import and interpretation of
propositions
In logic and linguistics, a proposition is the meaning of a declarative sentence. In philosophy, " meaning" is understood to be a non-linguistic entity which is shared by all sentences with the same meaning. Equivalently, a proposition is the no ...
.
G.F. Stout says of her: "She did good service in insisting on the distinction between interpretation from the point of view of the speaker and that of the hearer". In her autobiography, Jones wrote of an early fascination with issues related to the nature and structure of content:
"This unsettled question—what is asserted when you make a statement, and what is the proper form of statement?—had deeply interested me from the time when I was a student and puzzled over Mill's and
Jevons' accounts of propositions."
Jones published several textbooks on logic and numerous articles on logic and ethics, particularly on Sidgwick's ethical hedonism. However, despite her contribution to
analytic philosophy
Analytic philosophy is a branch and tradition of philosophy using analysis, popular in the Western world and particularly the Anglosphere, which began around the turn of the 20th century in the contemporary era in the United Kingdom, United Sta ...
she has become largely forgotten.
References
Notes
*
External links
*
* PhilPapers
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jones, Constance
1848 births
1922 deaths
Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club
English philosophers
German–English translators
Mistresses of Girton College, Cambridge
English logicians
Moral philosophers
19th-century British philosophers
20th-century British philosophers
English women philosophers
20th-century English women writers
20th-century English writers
20th-century translators
19th-century English women writers
19th-century British writers
19th-century translators