William Whewell

William Whewell ( born May 24, 1794 in Lancaster, † March 6, 1866 in Cambridge, pronunciation hju ː əl ) was a British philosopher and historian of science.

Life and work

William Whewell was in 1817 a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1818 President of the Cambridge Union Society. From 1828 to 1832 he was professor of mineralogy and from 1838 to 1855 professor of moral philosophy ( "moral theology and divinity casuistical " ) at the University of Cambridge.

Among his lasting contributions to science include Whewell's neologisms. He used 1834 in a review of Mary Somerville's On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences for the first time the word scientist, the English word for scientists. In the same work he also disagreed with the thesis of the philosopher François Poullain de La Barre, the spirit has no gender, and instructed men and women thus - to einordnend in a scientific discourse of his time - a different but legitimate in both cases capacity to science. Above all, he coined at the request of Michael Faraday, whose work on the chemical effects of electric current required new terms, the terms anode, cathode, anion, cation and anion.

Whewell died in 1866 on the grounds of Trinity College, Cambridge by a fatal fall from a horse. In his will, he donated among other things, the Whewell Chair of International Law at Cambridge University, which was established two years after his death.

Honors

Writings (selection )

  • On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences, by Mrs. Somerville. In: The Quarterly Review. Volume 51, 1834, pp. 54-68 (online).
  • Astronomy and General Physics Considered with reference to Natural Theology. ( a Bridgewater Treatises ).
  • The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. In 1840.
  • The Elements of Morality, including Polity. In 1845.
  • The Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. 2nd edition, 1847.
  • History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the Present Time. 1837ff. , 3rd edition 1873.
  • The History of Scientific Ideas. In 1858.
  • Novum Organon Renovatum. In 1858.
  • On the Philosophy of Discovery. In 1860.
  • Six Lectures on Political Economy. , 1862.
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