Samuel Alexander . English neorealist philosopher [1] , of Australian origin, founder of the idealist theory of emergent evolution. It considered that the space- time is the primary material of the world and identified with the movement . From such space-time, through unpredictable qualitative leaps, matter, life , psyche, “tertiary qualities” (values), “angels”, God successively emerge . Emerging evolution is driven by an ideal drive perceived as a trend toward the new. Alexander’s conceptions are in contradiction with sciencemodern. His main works are: “Space, time and divinity” ( 1920 ), ” Art and the material” ( 1925 ), “Beauty and other forms of value” ( 1933 ). [1]
Summary
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- 1 Biographical synthesis
- 1 Death
- 2 Important works
- 3 Premises in his work
- 4 References
- 5 Sources
Biographical synthesis
He was born on 6 of January of 1859 , in what is now the commercial center of Sydney in Australia . He was the third child of Samuel Alexander, a prosperous saddle maker, and Eliza Sloman, both Jews.
His father died shortly before his birth and his mother moved to Victoria in 1863 or 1864 . The whole family settled in St. Kilda, where Alexander entered a private school. In 1871 , he enrolled at Wesley University in Melbourne and later at the University of Melbourne.
In 1882 he became a “Fellow” at Oxford and later became a professor at the Victoria University of Manchester, where he taught throughout his career, that is, until 1924 , the year he retired.
Death
He died on September 13 , 1938 .
Important works
Alexander’s first work is Moral Order and Progress , in which he analyzed revolutionary ethics. In the Anglo-Saxon environment of the time, he was mainly influenced by GE Moore and in general by the royalist currents.
A consequence of this orientation of his is the point of view exposed in the work La base del realismo ( 1914 ). Realism is combined in Alexander with a general theory of evolution, whose fundamental principles are very close to those that will be expressed in the work Emergent Evolution ( 1933 ) by Conwy Lloyd Morgan ( 1852 – 1937 ).
Alexander has in common with Morgan the idea of a non-mechanistic evolution, of a process that takes place only insofar as it tends towards novelty and the emergence of new forms acts. Consciousness, in general, is not determined by a rigid causal concatenation, but is produced by virtue of a temporal process with a new and free act.
Premises in his work
These premises are developed in a complicated philosophical system exposed in the great work Space, time and divinity. The specific forms of reality, things, are here, for this author, determinations of a space-time substance. The fact that reality is a mode of substance brings this philosopher closer to Spinoza , while, on the other hand, the fact that substance is temporal and spatial does not agree with Spinoza’s determinism. A confrontation with Spinoza was therefore imposed on Alexander, and to this demand we owe his work Spinoza and Time ( 1921 ).
The conception of the universe as finalistic temporality, directed towards the consciousness, the spirit and the divine, allows Alexander to enhance the ends and the values, closely linked to the aesthetic harmony and order. This position is expressed in Alexander’s last notable work: Beauty and Other Forms of Courage ( 1933 ). Alexander’s philosophical system has not ceased to influence the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead .
