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Borden Parker Bowne

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Borden Parker Bowne
Born(1847-01-14)January 14, 1847
DiedApril 1, 1910(1910-04-01) (aged 63)
SpouseKate Morrison[1]
Ecclesiastical career
ReligionChristianity (Methodist)
ChurchMethodist Episcopal Church[2]
Ordained1882 (elder)[2]
Academic background
Alma materNew York University
Influences
Academic work
DisciplinePhilosophy
Sub-discipline
School or traditionBoston personalism
InstitutionsBoston University
Doctoral students
Notable studentsGeorge Albert Coe[10]
Notable worksMetaphysics (1882)
Influenced

Borden Parker Bowne[a] (January 14, 1847 – April 1, 1910) was an American Christian philosopher, Methodist minister and theologian.[15] He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature nine times.

Life

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Bowne was born on January 14, 1847, near Leonardville in Monmouth County, New Jersey.[16] In 1876 he became a professor of philosophy at Boston University,[17] where he taught for more than thirty years.[citation needed] He later served as the first dean of the graduate school.[18] Bowne was an acute critic of mechanistic determinism,[15] positivism, and naturalism. He categorized his views as Kantianized Berkeleyanism, transcendental empiricism, and, finally, personalism, emphasizing freedom and the importance of the self,[19] a philosophical branch of liberal theology: of this branch Bowne is the dominant figure; this personalism is sometimes called Boston personalism, in contrast with the California personalism of George Holmes Howison.[citation needed] Bowne's magnum opus, Metaphysics, was published in 1882.[14] Bowne was chiefly[citation needed] influenced by Hermann Lotze.[20] He died on April 1, 1910, in Boston, Massachusetts.[21]

Legacy

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Bowne has influenced philosophy in various ways. For instance, there has been a direct line of personalists from Bowne through his student, Edgar Sheffield Brightman (1884–1954), through Brightman's student, Peter Anthony Bertocci (1910–1989), to Bertocci's student, Thomas O. Buford (born 1932).

There has also been a more general influence, as with Martin Luther King Jr., who studied at Boston University, and spoke in his Stride Toward Freedom of having gained "a metaphysical basis for the dignity and worth of all human personality."[22]

Bowne received nine nominations for the Nobel Prize in Literature between 1906 and 1909—one from his own sister.[23]

Boston University named a professorship in Bowne's honor. The named professors are:

Published works

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  • The Philosophy of Herbert Spencer (New York, 1874).
  • Studies in Theism (New York, 1882).
  • Metaphysics: A Study in First Principles (New York, 1882; revised ed., 1898).
  • Introduction to Psychological Theory (New York, 1886).
  • Philosophy of Theism (New York, 1887; revised ed. 1902).
  • The Principles of Ethics (New York, 1892).
  • Theory of Thought and Knowledge (New York, 1899).
  • The Christian Revelation (Cincinnati, 1898).
  • The Christian Life (Cincinnati, 1899).
  • The Atonement (Cincinnati, 1900).
  • The Immanence of God (Boston, 1905).
  • Personalism (Boston, 1908).
  • Studies in Christianity (1909).
  • A Man's View of Woman Suffrage (Boston, 1910).
  • The Essence of Religion (Boston, 1910).
  • Kant and Spencer: A Critical Exposition (Boston, 1912).

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ Pronounced /ˈbn/.[14]

References

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Footnotes

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  1. ^ Burrow 1997a, p. 48.
  2. ^ a b c Burrow 1997a, p. 47.
  3. ^ Bertocci 1979, p. 206; Burrow 1997b, p. 245.
  4. ^ Burrow 1997b, p. 245.
  5. ^ Bertocci 1979, p. 206; Burrow 1997a, pp. 48–49; Burrow 1997b, p. 245.
  6. ^ Bertocci 1979, p. 206.
  7. ^ Wieman, Henry Nelson; Meland, Bernard Eugene (1936). American Philosophies of Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. p. 134. Quoted in Steinkraus 2002, p. 19.
  8. ^ Bertocci 1983, p. 32.
  9. ^ a b c Dorrien 2003, p. 219; Dorrien 2006, p. 10.
  10. ^ Archibald, Helen Allan. "George Albert Coe". Christian Educators of the 20th Century. La Mirada, California: Biola University. Retrieved September 28, 2019.
  11. ^ Burrow 1999, p. 78.
  12. ^ Chen 2017, p. 62.
  13. ^ Dorrien 2011, p. 308.
  14. ^ a b "Borden Parker Bowne" 2019.
  15. ^ a b DeWerff 1997, p. 128.
  16. ^ Auxier 2005, p. 306; "Borden Parker Bowne" 2019.
  17. ^ Burrow 1997a, p. 46.
  18. ^ Bertocci 1983, p. 32; DeWerff 1997, p. 128.
  19. ^ "Bowne, Parker Borden," in "The Columbia-Viking Desk Encyclopedia" (1953), New York: Viking.
  20. ^ Burrow 1997a, p. 50.
  21. ^ Wright Buckham 1924, p. 88.
  22. ^ King 1958.
  23. ^ "Borden Parker Bowne". Nomination Database. Nobel Media. Retrieved September 27, 2019.
  24. ^ "Charles Griswold Appointed Borden Parker Bowne Professor | Philosophy". www.bu.edu.
  25. ^ "Professor Juliet Floyd Appointed Borden Parker Bowne Professor of Philosophy | Philosophy". Boston University.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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