Background
Watson, John was born on February 25, 1847 in Glasgow, Scotland. Maternal ancestors were of Northumberland stock. Paternal ancestors were farmers in Lanarkshire.
Watson, John was born on February 25, 1847 in Glasgow, Scotland. Maternal ancestors were of Northumberland stock. Paternal ancestors were farmers in Lanarkshire.
Kilmarnock; Glasgow University. Master of Arts 1872; 1st Class Honours in Mental and Moral Philosophy and in English Literature. Master of Arts; Doctor of Laws.
Professor of Logic, Metaphysics, and Ethics at Queen’s University, Kingston, 1872. 1901, Vice Principal of the university. His entire career was spent there, although he was a Visiting Professor at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1895-1896 and a Gifford Lecturer at the University of Glasgow in 1910-1912.
A strong influence on Canadian protestantism, he played an important role in the founding of the United Church of Canada, but never, in fact, joined it.
Main publications:
(1872) The Relation of Philosophy to Science, Inaugural Lecture. Queen's University, Kingston. Canada, 16 October 1872
reprinted in Douglas Rabb (ed.). Religion and Science in Early Canada, Kingston, Ontario: Frye, 1988.
(1881) Kant and his English Critics, Glasgow: J. Maclehose.
(1882) Schelling's Transcendental Idealism, Chicago: S. C. Briggs.
(1894) Hedonistic Theories: from Aristippes to Spencer, London: Maclehose.
(1895) Comte. Mill and Spencer An Outline of Philosophy. Glasgow: Maclehose
fourth edition.
1908 (subsequent editions appeared simply as Outline of Philosophy).
(1896) Christianity and Idealism, New York: Macmillan.
(1899) Philo and the New Testament. Kingston, Ontario: W. Bailie.
(1907) The Philosophical Basis of Religion, Glasgow: Maclehose.
(1908) The Philosophy of Kant Explained, Glasgow: Maclehose.
(1910-1912) The Interpretation of Religious Experience, 2 vols. Glasgow.
(1919) The State in Peace and War, Glasgow: Maclehose.
Secondary literature:
Armour, Leslie and Trott, Elizabeth (1981) The Faces of Reason, Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
Rabb, Douglas (ed.) (1988) Religion and Science in Early Canada, Kingston. Ontario: Frye.
Watson was a major figure in the development of Canadian idealism. He was strongly influenced by John and Edward Caird. although he was less strongly attached than Edward Caird to a literal evolutionism in the philosophy of religion. His idealism was more historically oriented than that of his English contemporaries Bradley and Bosanquet. He conceived God as essentially a community which could find expression in a worldly political order. The most constant theme running through his work is the reunion of God and a man in a single community, and his whole philosophy could be seen as a celebration of man's escape from the shadow of Calvinist predestinarianism—a shadow which the Caird brothers did so much to lift in Scotland. But his main technical interests were always in the theory of knowledge and, more precisely, in the passage from Kantian phenomenalism to a picture of reality which would do justice to the demands of science and to his own passion for the close analysis of experience. His inaugural lecture at Queen’s on science and philosophy thus foreshadows his career over the more than half a century that he remained in Kingston. His study of Kant began early and lasted all his life. He took very seriously the philosopher’s duty to the public, and his State in Peace and War (1919) advocates a kind of world order which is influenced by his understanding of Canadian political federalism and which is meant to provide rational underpinning for a society whose fragmentation has been regularly predicted. He strove to reach an understanding with philosophers in Quebec and philosophers in Quebec admired his understanding of the philosphy of Aquinas though they disliked his Hegelianism. His vision of a pluralistic society had much in common with that in Louis Lachance’s Religion et nationalisme. His Christianity and Idealism (1896) was written in response to an invitation to lecture at the University of California during the debate between Josiah Royce and his successor there, George Holmes Howison. Howison wrote a preface to the book suggesting that Watson's position was well received by the California philosophers. Two chapters are devoted to Watson in Armour and Trott (1981) and there is a discussion of his work in Rabb (1988). Sources: Macmillan Dictionary of Canadian Biography.
Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.
Spouse 1874, Margaret Patterson Mitchell, Glasgow.