Abstract: Thomas Upham was one of the most prolific writers of the Scottish tradition in America, and he had the merit of writing not only on the standard topics but also on ones avoided, or only lightly touched, by other members of the tradition, including the problem of relations and the nature of alienated or insane behavior. He also had the distinction of being one of the few Scottish realists who was not a college president: he was professor of mental and moral philosophy at Bowdoin College for forty-three years. Upham was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, in 1799 and attended Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College, and Andover Seminary, where he successfully completed each course of study.1 The great Biblical scholar Moses Stuart retained Upham at Andover for several years for further study and to teach Greek and Hebrew at the seminary. After pastoring one year at the Congregational Church in Rochester, New York, Upham returned to Bowdoin as professor of philosophy and remained for the greater part of his life lecturing effectively and writing numerous books that were widely read and went into numerous editions. None was as phenomenally successful as Francis Way land's Elements of Moral Science, but they all commanded a significantly large audience. Strange as it may seem, philosophy was widely read in those days. In 1827 Upham published his Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, essentially a textbook but which, by 1831, had evolved into a systematic work of two volumes entitled Elements of Mental Philosophy,2 This work went through numerous editions, though it changed little in substance through the years. His influential work on the will, A Philosophical and Practical Treatise on the Will, was published in 1834. His last systematic work, still being printed as late as 1883, was an Abridgement of Mental Philosophy (which also included a very short abridgement of his book on the will), a book which again confirms the fact that Upham made no essential changes in his views from 1840 on. His significant
Publication Year: 1983
Publication Date: 1983-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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