Background
James Baillie was born on October 24, 1872, in West Mill, Tennessee, United States.
Cambridge CB2 1TQ, United Kingdom
Trinity College where James Baillie studied.
Old College, South Bridge, Edinburgh EH8 9YL, United Kingdom
The University of Edinburgh where James Baillie received a Doctor of Philosophy degree.
The Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire that James Baillie received in 1919.
The Order of the Crown of Italy that James Baillie received.
King's College, Aberdeen AB24 3FX, United Kingdom
The University of Aberdeen where James Baillie studied.
James Baillie was born on October 24, 1872, in West Mill, Tennessee, United States.
James Black Baillie attended school in Haddington, East Lothian. Later he studied at Trinity College where he received a Master of Arts degree. He also studied at the University of Edinburgh where he received a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1899. Later Baillie received his Legum Doctor degree from the University of Aberdeen.
James Baillie started his career as a lecturer at University College. In 1902 he took up a post of a Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen. He held this post until 1924 and then became a Vice-Chancellor at the University of Leeds where he worked until retirement in 1938. James Baillie also acted as an arbitrator and conciliator in industrial disputes under the Chief Industrial Commissioner at the Ministry of Labour between 1917-1919. He was then appointed to Chairman's panel of Arbitration Courts under the Industrial Courts Act, 1919.
He was appointed Chairman to the Court of Enquiry into the Trawling Industry at Hull, and Chairman of the Conciliation Board for the Industry in 1935. He also acted as Chairman to the Government Committee on the regulation of wages and conditions of service in the Road Motor Transport Industry in 1936. He then went on to be appointed Chairman of the Arbitration Tribunal on wages and conditions of labor in the oilfields at Trinidad, Island of Tobago, Caribbean, in 1938.
James Baillie published his first book The Origin And Significance Of Hegel's Logic in 1901. Later he wrote such books as An Outline of the Idealistic Construction of Experience, Studies in Human Nature and Reflections on Life and Religion.
Baillie repudiated idealism for a kind of personalistic pragmatism in which he emphasized individuality and "critical common sense". In place of the Hegelian world-reason, he took a more relativistic and anthropocentric view of philosophy and science. He accepted, against empiricism, the necessity of interpretation in science but insisted, against Bosanquet and ‘the idealistic school’, on the independence of the reality thus interpreted. This suggests that notwithstanding his earlier adherence to idealism, the seeds of his disaffection from it had been sown long before the World War.
James Black Baillie married Helena May James in August 1902.