Henry Sidgwick | |
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Born |
Skipton, Yorkshire |
31 May 1838
Died | 28 August 1900 Cambridge, Cambridgeshire |
(aged 62)
Alma mater | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Era | 19th-century philosophy |
Region | Western Philosophy |
School | Utilitarianism |
Institutions | Trinity College, Cambridge |
Main interests
|
Ethics, politics |
Notable ideas
|
Ethical hedonism, paradox of hedonism |
Influences
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Henry Sidgwick (/ˈsɪdʒwɪk/; 31 May 1838 – 28 August 1900) was an English utilitarian philosopher and economist. He was one of the founders and first president of the Society for Psychical Research and a member of the Metaphysical Society and promoted the higher education of women. His work in economics has also had a lasting influence.
He also founded Newnham College in 1875, a women-only constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It was the second Cambridge college to admit women after Girton College. The co-founder of the college was Millicent Garrett Fawcett.
He joined the Cambridge Apostles intellectual secret society in 1856.
He was born at Skipton in Yorkshire, where his father, the Reverend W. Sidgwick (d. 1841), was headmaster of the local grammar school, Ermysted's Grammar School. His mother was Mary Sidgwick, née Crofts (1807–1879).
Henry himself was educated at Rugby (where his cousin, subsequently his brother-in-law, Edward White Benson, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was a master), and at Trinity College, Cambridge. While at Trinity, Sidgwick became a member of the Cambridge Apostles. In 1859, he was senior classic, 33rd wrangler, chancellor's medallist and Craven scholar. In the same year, he was elected to a fellowship at Trinity, and soon afterwards, he became a lecturer in classics there, a post he held for ten years. The Sidgwick Site, home to several of the university's arts and humanities faculties in the university, is named after him.