Dugald Stewart
Dugald Stewart was a prominent Scottish moral philosopher born in Edinburgh in 1753. He is best known for his role in teaching and interpreting the commonsense philosophy of fellow Scot Thomas Reid during his lengthy tenure at the University of Edinburgh, where he transitioned from mathematics to philosophy in 1785. Stewart became celebrated for his engaging lectures and writings, which helped popularize Reid's ideas, especially in the United States, where his texts became integral to academic curricula, influencing Protestant culture despite his limited direct involvement with it.
Stewart's early life was marked by illness, which fostered his academic interests, and he later formed meaningful connections with notable figures, including Thomas Jefferson. Throughout his career, Stewart maintained a focus on philosophical reflection while steering clear of politically charged debates, although he held liberal views. His personal life included two marriages, the loss of family members, and struggles with health issues that ultimately led to his resignation from academia in 1811. Dugald Stewart passed away in 1828, and his contributions to philosophy are commemorated by a monument in Edinburgh.
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Dugald Stewart
Philosopher
- Born: November 22, 1753
- Birthplace: Edinburgh, Scotland
- Died: June 11, 1823
- Place of death: Edinburgh, Scotland
Biography
Scottish eighteenth century moral philosopher Dugald Stewart’s influence comes not from his original thought, which was minimal, but from his efforts during a forty-year tenure at the University of Edinburgh to teach and interpret the commonsense philosophy of fellow Scotsman Thomas Reid. Stewart is also credited for popularizing Reid’s philosophy in a series of prominent works that were more engaging and more clearly written than Reid’s own statements of his ideas.
Born in 1753 in Edinburgh to a clergyman father who was also a professor of mathematics, Stewart’s childhood was plagued by illness. He spent much of his time in bed, reading and developing the interest in academic pursuits which he would continue for his entire life. In the early 1770’s, he studied under Reid at Glasgow University, but returned to Edinburgh at the age of nineteen before completing his study to take over his father’s position in the mathematics department. In 1785, due to his natural philosophical inclinations, Stewart’s chair was transferred from mathematics to philosophy, and he remained in that position until he was forced to resign it in 1811 due to illness. He married for the first time in 1783 and had one son.
Stewart rapidly became well-known and highly respected for his abilities as a lecturer in moral philosophy. One of his students was the American clergyman Dr. Charles Lowell, the father of James Russell Lowell, but Lowell was not his most significant American pupil. Stewart met and forged a lasting friendship with the then American ambassador to Paris, Thomas Jefferson, in 1789, and their relationship and correspondence continued until Jefferson’s death in 1826.
As powerful as these friendships were, Stewart’s influence in America came primarily through his books, which were frequently set texts in American universities. Princeton University adopted Stewart-authored texts in art, education, and religion classes, and as a center for Protestantism in the United States, Princeton’s advocacy of Stewart’s ideas made him central to the evolution of American Protestant culture, despite his own utter lack of direct engagement with American Protestantism. Perhaps as a result of this connection with the popular grass-roots religious movement, Stewart’s volumes were also commonly found in American homes.
Interested primarily in pure philosophical reflection, Stewart avoided politically radical or tendentious arguments. He was nonetheless liberal both politically and economically. Suspected of Jacobinism in the early days of the French Revolution, by 1790 he was reading his lectures from fully written-out scripts rather than notes in order to avoid accidental political statements that could get him in trouble.
Stewart’s wife died in 1787, and he remarried in 1790. His second wife bore him a second son and a daughter, but the son died in 1809. Subsequently, the grief-stricken Stewart’s health began to decline. He resigned his post at Edinburgh two years later and spent the remainder of his life writing and studying at home and struggling with recurrent illness, including a brief paralysis in 1822. He died in Edinburgh in 1828, and the city erected a monument to him on top of Calton Hill.