25 Facts About Dugald Stewart

Dugald Stewart was a Scottish philosopher and mathematician.

Dugald Stewart was the son of Matthew Stewart, professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh, and was born in his father's quarters at Old College.

Dugald Stewart was educated at the High School and the University of Edinburgh, where he studied mathematics and moral philosophy under Adam Ferguson.

In Glasgow, Dugald Stewart boarded in the same house as Archibald Alison, author of the Essay on Taste, and a lasting friendship sprang up between them.

In 1785 Dugald Stewart succeeded Ferguson in the chair of moral philosophy, which he filled for twenty-five years, making it a centre of intellectual and moral influence.

Dugald Stewart spent the summers of 1788 and 1789 in France, where he met Suard, Degerando, and Raynal, and came to sympathise with the revolutionary movement.

Dugald Stewart's political teaching, after the French Revolution, drew suspicion on him.

From 1800 to 1801, Dugald Stewart gave lectures to undergraduate students on the subject of political economy, the first person to do so.

Dugald Stewart made himself the leading disciple of Adam Smith and, after Smith's death became his first biographer.

In 1793 Dugald Stewart had read his Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith to the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

In 1783 Dugald Stewart married Helen Bannatyne, who died in 1787, leaving him an only son, Matthew Dugald Stewart FRSE.

Dugald Stewart's second wife was well-born and accomplished, and he was in the habit of submitting to her criticism whatever he wrote.

Dugald Stewart's successor was John Wilson, known as "Christopher North".

From 1809 onwards Dugald Stewart lived mainly at Kinneil House, Bo'ness, which was placed at his disposal by the Duke of Hamilton.

Dugald Stewart was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1791.

In June 1814 Dugald Stewart was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Dugald Stewart was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1817.

Dugald Stewart died in Edinburgh on 11 June 1828, where he was buried in Canongate Churchyard, close to his Edinburgh residence.

Dugald Stewart is buried in an enclosed vault in the lower section, on its west side.

Dugald Stewart's memory is honoured by the "Dugald Stewart Building" for the University of Edinburgh to house its Philosophy Department, on Charles Street, off George Square.

In 1805 Dugald Stewart published pamphlets defending John Leslie against the charges of unorthodoxy made by the presbytery of Edinburgh.

Dugald Stewart's reputation rested as much on his eloquence, populism, and style as on original work.

Dugald Stewart was principally responsible for making the "Scottish philosophy" predominant in early 19th-century Europe.

Dugald Stewart upheld Reid's psychological method and expounded the Scottish Common Sense Realism, which was attacked by James Mill and John Stuart Mill.

Dugald Stewart opposed the argument of ontology, and Condillac's sensationalism.