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FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1819– )

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 39 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FRASER, See also:ALEXANDER See also:CAMPBELL (1819– ) , Scottish philosopher, was See also:born at Ardchattan, See also:Argyllshire, on the 3rd of See also:September 1819. He was educated at See also:Glasgow and See also:Edinburgh, where, from 1846 to 1856, he was See also:professor of See also:Logic at New See also:College. He edited the See also:North See also:British See also:Review from 185o to 1857, and in 1856, having previously been a See also:Free See also:Church See also:minister, he succeeded See also:Sir See also:William See also:Hamilton as professor of Logic and See also:Metaphysics at Edinburgh University. In 1859 he became See also:dean of the See also:faculty of arts. He devoted himself to the study of See also:English philosophers, especially See also:Berkeley, and published a Collected Edition of the See also:Works of See also:Bishop Berkeley with Annotations, &c. (1871; enlarged 1901), a See also:Biography of Berkeley (1881), an Annotated Edition of See also:Locke's See also:Essay (1894), the See also:Philosophy of See also:Theism (1896) and the Biography of See also:Thomas See also:Reid (1898). He contributed the See also:article on See also:John Locke to the See also:Encyclopaedia Britannica. In 1904 he published an autobiography entitled Biographia philosophica, in which he sketched the progress of his intellectual development. From this See also:work and from his See also:Gifford lectures we learn objectively what had previously been inferred from his See also:critical ws. After a childhood spent in an austerity which stigmatized* unholy even the novels of Sir See also:Walter See also:Scott, he began his college career at the See also:age of fourteen at a See also:time when See also:Christopher North and Dr See also:Ritchie were lecturing on Moral Philosophy and Logic. His first philosophical advance was stimulated by Thomas See also:Brown's Cause and Effect, which introduced him to the problems which were to occupy his thought. From this point he See also:fell into the See also:scepticism of See also:Hume.

In 1836 Sir William Hamilton was appointed to the See also:

chair of Logic and Metaphysics, and Fraser became his See also:pupil. He himself says, " I owe more to Hamilton than to any other See also:influence." It was about this time also that he began his study of Berkeley and See also:Coleridge, and deserted his See also:early phenomenalism for the conception of a spiritual will as the universal cause. In the Biographia this " Theistic faith " appears in its full development (see the concluding See also:chapter), and is especially important as perhaps the nearest approach to Kantian See also:ethics made by See also:original English philosophy. Apart from the philosophical See also:interest of the Biographia, the work contains valuable pictures of the See also:Land of Lorne and Argyllshire society in the early 19th See also:century, of university See also:life in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and a See also:history of the North British Review.

End of Article: FRASER, ALEXANDER CAMPBELL (1819– )

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