Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison

Andrew Seth, DCL (1856, Edinburgh – 1931, The Haining, Selkirkshire), who changed his name to Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison in 1898 to fulfill the terms of a bequest, was a Scottish philosopher. His brother was James Seth, also a philosopher.

Their father, Smith Kinmont Seth, was the son of a farmer from Fife and a bank clerk in the head office of the Commercial Bank of Scotland. Their mother, Margaret, was the daughter of Andrew Little a farmer from Berwickshire. An elder brother died in infancy.

Seth was educated at High School and the University of Edinburgh. In 1878 he was awarded a Hibbert Travelling Fellowship. He spent two years abroad, chiefly at German universities. On his return in 1880 he was appointed assistant to Professor Campbell Fraser, Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh. He became Balfour Lecturer in Philosophy in 1883. From 1883–87 he was Professor of Logic and Philosophy at the newly created University College of Cardiff. He returned to Scotland in 1887 when he was appointed Professor of Logic, Rhetoric and Metaphysics at St Andrews (1887–91). He was Gifford Lecturer, University of Aberdeen, 1911–13, Hibbert Lecturer (1921) and Gifford Lecturer, University of Edinburgh (1921–23).

Pringle-Pattison received the degree Doctor of Civil Law (DCL) honoris causa from the University of Durham in June 1902.

In 1884 he married Eva (d. 1928), daughter of Albrecht Stropp. The couple had two daughters and three sons

He is buried with his wife and family in Morningside Cemetery, Edinburgh against the south wall towards the south-west.

Seth's twin enemies were English Empiricism and the Anglo variant of Hegelianism. According to Seth, both manner of philosophy degraded the independence of the individual. "Each self," he wrote in Hegelianism and Personality, "is a unique existence, which is perfectly impervious ... to other selves – impervious in a fashion of which the impenetrability of matter is a faint analogue." Seth's comments here stand in stark contrast to the British and American Hegelianism of the turn of the 20th century.

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