James Frederick Ferrier

He was educated at the Royal High School, the University of Edinburgh and Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently, his metaphysical tastes having been fostered by his intimate friend, Sir William Hamilton, spent some time at Heidelberg studying German philosophy.

He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for chairs in Edinburgh, for that of moral philosophy on Wilson's resignation in 1852, and for that of logic and metaphysics in 1856, after Hamilton's death.

He died in St Andrews (possibly of syphilis) and is buried with his aunt Susan Ferrier in St. Cuthberts Churchyard in Edinburgh just to the north-east of the church.

In these he condemns previous philosophers for ignoring in their psychological investigations the fact of consciousness, which is the distinctive feature of man, and confining their observation to the so-called states of the mind.

Ferrier pronounces the perception of matter to be the ne plus ultra of thought, and declares that Reid, for presuming to analyse it, is in fact a representationist, although he professed to be an intuitionist.

[4] Ferrier's matured philosophical doctrines find expression in the Institutes of Metaphysic: The Theory of Knowing and Being (1854), in which he claims to have met the twofold obligation resting on every system of philosophy, that it should be reasoned and true.

[4] Self-evident truths concerning knowing and the known are discussed in the Institutes of Metaphysic (Ferrier is thought to have coined the term epistemology in this work, p. 46).

[4] The Ontology or Theory of Being forms a discussion of the origin of knowledge, in which Ferrier traces all the perplexities and errors of philosophers to the assumption of the absolute existence of matter.

[4] The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica adjudges Ferrier's works as remarkable for their unusual charm and simplicity of style, qualities which are especially noticeable in the Lectures on Greek Philosophy, one of the best introductions on the subject in the English language.