Alexander Campbell Fraser
Alexander Campbell Fraser- A Famous Scottish Philosopher
Alexander Campbell Fraser (1819-1914) was born at Ardchattan, Argyllshire, and, at the age of fourteen, he began his college career at the University of Glasgow and then the University of Edinburgh. In 1836 Alexander Campbell Fraser became a student of the influential, Scottish metaphysician, Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet who had been elected to the Edinburgh chair of logic and metaphysics. In 1846 he became professor of Logic at New College, Edinburgh and in 1856 he succeeded Sir William Hamilton as professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh University and in 1859 he became dean of the faculty of arts.
Sir William Hamilton was to be a major influence on Fraser who said "I owe more to Hamilton than to any other influence". It would appear that hamilton inspired Fraser to study the English philosopher George Berkeley, and, in 1871 he published a "Collected Edition of the Works of Bishop Berkeley with Annotations, etc." and later, in 1881 he published a "Biography of Berkeley". Fraser's interests extended to other English philosophers including Samuel Taylor Coleridge and John Locke and in 1894 Fraser published his "Annotated Edition of Locke's Essay" (and he also contributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica's entry for John Locke). Other publications included the "Philosophy of Theism" (1896) and, in 1898, the "Biography of Thomas Reid" (Thomas Reid was a famous Scottish philosopher and contemporary of David Hume, another famous Scottish philosopher).
In 1904 Alexander Campbell Fraser published his autobiography "Biographia philosophica" in which he examined his own intellectual development. This publication was of interest to other philosophers but it is also an important historical document which allows us insight into the society of the time. The Biographia contains valuable information about the 19th Century Land of Lorne and Argyllshire society. It also contains details of university life in Glasgow and Edinburgh during the extended period in which Fraser lived and worked in those Universities.
Fraser's Biographia also contained an early history of the North British Review which had been formed in 1844 by a group of members of the Free Church of Scotland. From the Biographia we are able to learn of Fraser's childhood which appears to have been rather austere and religiously strict. This may explain Fraser's interest in the North Brush Review which was a "national review" for Scotland along the lines of the secular "Edinburgh Review" and rather conservative "Quarterly Review" but with a concentration on politics and religion with a more liberal perspective.
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