James Frederick Ferrier: Selected Writings

JF Ferrier was professor of moral philosophy at St Andrews University in the mid-19th century at the time that Andrew Lang was an undergraduate. His lectures were legendary, but his influence has been slight, owing to the fact that he was developing an unfashionable idealist philosophy. Interestingly, he coined the term epistemology and his main work was on philosophy of consciousness, which makes it all the more relevant to our time. He followed on from Sir William Hamilton and Thomas Reid in an attempt to reconcile Reid with Kant's transcendental idealism. His focus is self-consciousness as the defining feature of humanity, hence his rejection of the Enlightenment project of developing a science of man on the grounds that we are both subject and object.