George Sylvester Morris (November 15, 1840 – March 23, 1889) was a 19th-century
American educator and philosophical writer.
Biography
Morris was born in
Norwich
Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...
,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
.
He was the son of a well known abolitionist and temperance man. In 1861, he graduated from
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...
, served in the Union army for two years during the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states ...
, and taught at
Dartmouth in 1863–1864.
He studied
philosophy and
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
at
Union Theological Seminary (New York)
Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (UTS) is a private ecumenical Christian liberal seminary in Morningside Heights, Manhattan, affiliated with neighboring Columbia University. Since 1928, the seminary has served as Columbia's co ...
and then in
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
(under
Hermann Ulrici and
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (30 November 1802 – 24 January 1872) was a German philosopher and philologist.
Life
He was born at Eutin, near Lübeck. He was placed in a gymnasium in Eutin, which was under the direction of , a philologist infl ...
)
[Steven Rockefeller, ''John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism'', Columbia University Press, 1994, p. 78: " orris'sstudies with Trendelenburg left him with the lasting conviction that philosophy must be grounded in scientific methods of truth, but Trendelenburg guided him away from British empiricism to an Aristotelian idealism."] for several years, after which, in 1870, the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
appointed him professor of modern languages and literature. He arranged for
John Dewey's first college level teaching position at the University of Michigan. He was also offered the chair of philosophy at
Bowdoin College, which he declined in view of Bowdoin's wish for some assurance of his soundness in Christian doctrine. In January 1878 he gave twenty lectures at
Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hemisphere. It consi ...
(Hopkins Hall Lectures, which were open to the public) on the
history of philosophy. He continued lecturing regularly at Hopkins through 1884, on such topics as
British philosophy
British philosophy refers to the philosophical tradition of the British people. "The native characteristics of British philosophy are these: common sense, dislike of complication, a strong preference for the concrete over the abstract and a certa ...
, German
aesthetics
Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...
, 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, concer ...
. In 1881, he was appointed to the chair of ethics, history of philosophy, and
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 premise ...
at Michigan. In 1883 he became chair of the Michigan department, a position he held until his death. At Johns Hopkins Morris was one of John Dewey's main teachers. He also gave a course of twelve public lectures on ''British Thought and Thinkers'' (which he would later publish in book form).
Publications
Morris published a translation of
Ueberweg's ''History of Philosophy'' (two volumes, 1872–74) and an edition of ''Philosophical Classics'' by Gregg, and he wrote:
* ''British Thought and Thinkers'' (1880)
* ''Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: A Critical Exposition'' (1882)
* ''Philosophy and Christianity'' (1883)
* ''Hegel's Philosophy of the State and of History'' (1887)
References
Further reading
*
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Morris, George Sylvester
1840 births
1889 deaths
Dartmouth College alumni
Union Theological Seminary (New York City) alumni
University of Michigan faculty
Johns Hopkins University faculty
American non-fiction writers
American book editors
People from Norwich, Vermont
German–English translators
19th-century American translators
People of Vermont in the American Civil War