A. E. Taylor

  Alfred Edward Taylor (1869-1945) began his career with a prize fellowship at Merton College, Oxford in 1891. He then served as an assistant lecturer in Greek and philosophy at the University of Manchester (1896–1903), as Frothingham Professor at McGill University, Montreal (1903–1908) and as a professor of moral philosophy at the University of St. Andrews (1908–1924). He ended his career with a professorship of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, from which he retired in 1941, though he continued to do the work of the chair until 1944.
  “In an age of universal upheaval and strife, he was a notable defender of Idealism” (Passmore, 1957). Taylor was a major contributor to the school of British idealism, following F. H. Bradley, to whom he dedicated his Elements of Metaphysics (1903), “in heartfelt acknowledgment” (Passmore, 1957), and his theistic metaphysics (Does God Exist?, (1945). Taylor “remained firmly attached to a theistic and spiritualist interpretation of reality” (Macquarrie, 1967). His work as a moralist and profound student of the ethics of Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Hobbes and Humes is crtical. Perhaps his most important philosophical works were Plato: The Man and His Work, 1926; and A Commentary on Plato’s ’Timaeus’, 1927. Taylor’s collection of the Gifford Lecture series, The Faith of a Moralist, is unparallelled.
  Other works by Taylor include The Problem of Conduct: A Study in the Phenomenology of Ethics (1901); Elements of Metaphysics (1903); Thomas Hobbes (1908); Plato (1908); Epicurus (1911); Varia Socractica (first series, 1911); Platonism and Its Influence (1924); David Hume and the Miraculous (1927); Plato and the Authorship of the Epinomis (1929); Socrates (1932); Philosophical Studies (1934); The Christian Hope of Immortality (1938); Does God Exist? (1945).

Selected Works of A. E. Taylor

Elements of Metaphysics, Part I.
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Elements of Metaphysics, Part II.
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Epicurus A materialist and hedonist philosopher.
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The Faith of a Moralist, Gifford Lectures, Series I.
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The Faith of a Moralist, Gifford Lectures, Series II.
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The Laws of Plato, a translation of one of Plato’s greatest works.
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Plato Biography of the philosopher who shaped Western thought.
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Platonism and Its Influence A study of Plato’s profound effect on Western thinking.
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Plato: The Man and His Work I., a study of Plato’s Dialogues.
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Plato: The Man and His Work, II. a study of Plato’s Dialogues.
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The Problem of Conduct A Study in the Phenomenology of Ethics.
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Papers

Aristotle
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The Metaphysical Problem, With Special Reference to its Bearing Upon Ethics Inaugural Meeting of the Owens College Philosophical Society, 1910.
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Mind and Nature International Journal of Ethics, January 1902.
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Philosophical Studies Lectures delivered in the University of St. Andrews, 1924-1925.
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The Place of Psychology in the Classification of the Sciences American Philosophical Association, 1907.
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Self-Realization — A Criticism International Journal of Ethics, vol. vi. No. 3, 1898.
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Socrates, Detailed biography and review of his philosophical originality.
» Read it here »

Truth and Practice, The Philosophical Review, May 1905
» Read it here »

Obituary
Professor A. E. Taylor, Eminent Platonist

Alfred Edward Taylor
Artist: David Foggie, 1934
Scottish National Portrait Gallery

Dr. A. E. Taylor, Professor Emeritus of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh University, died in Edinburgh on Wednesday. He was appointed to the Chair in 1924 and became Professor Emeritus in 1941. By the death of Alfred Edward Taylor (writes C.A.C.) a great figure passes from our midst, one who has long enjoyed international renown in the world of classical and philosophical scholarship, and without doubt one of the most learned men of his time. We in Scotland have especial cause to mourn the loss of one who, in the moral philosophy chairs of St Andrews and Edinburgh, gave close on 40 years of inspiring service to the country of his adoption—deepening, enlarging, refining, and edifying the minds of many generations of Scottish students. Nor will pupils and colleagues soon forget how in A. E. Taylor an erudition almost terrifying in its scope was united with a natural humility, a human kindliness and generosity of spirit, and a depth of piety which evoked from his friends esteem for him as a man not less than admiration of his great gifts.

Born in 1869, Taylor received his schooling in Bath, and thence entered New College, Oxford, as a Scholar. Brilliant academic achievements led to his election to a Fellowship at Merton College in 1891. In 1896 he was appointed Assistant in Classics and Philosophy at Manchester University, from which he went, in 1903, to be Professor of Philosophy at McGill University. In 1908, when he was called to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at St Andrews, began his long and fruitful career as a Scottish Professor. He remained in St Andrews for 16 years—a period justly famous in the annals of St Andrews for the contemporaneous presence on the staff of three exceptionally gifted philosophers and very remarkable men, John Burnet, G.F. Stout, and A.E. Taylor. In 1924 he was translated to the corresponding Chair at Edinburgh. From this he retired only last year, patriotic duty having persuaded him to remain in harness well beyond the natural term.

Mastery of Material

Taylor was a prolific author; but it is safe to say that in the whole Taylor corpus there is not a single mediocre, much less a shoddy, piece of work. Even his earliest books, “The Problem of Conduct” (1901) and “The Elements of Metaphysics” (1903), show a mastery of material and a power and precision of statement which most philosophers in full maturity might well envy.

Taylor’s greatest distinction, however, has been won in the field of Greek Philosophy, for the study of which he had an almost unique equipment of classical scholarship, historical imagination, and philosophical acumen. Brilliant short studies of Socrates and Aristotle are among the most popular of his books on the ancients, but it was on the critical interpretation of his beloved Plato that his gifts were most abundantly lavished. His platonic study reached, in a sense, their consummation in his massive “Plato: The Man and His Work” (1927), which expounds and comments upon the whole series of Platonic Dialogues.

In 1926 St Andrews appointed Taylor as Gifford Lecturer, and, if proof were needed, proof was there forthcoming that his addiction to classical philosophy had not blunted his power of independent speculation. “The Faith of a Moralist” is at once a confessio fidei and a permanent contribution to the philosophy of religion. Philosophic posterity may well rank this book in no way below even Taylor’s finest achievements in Platonic scholarship.