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Kemp Smith, Norman (1872–1958)

DOI
10.4324/9780415249126-DD032-1
DOI: 10.4324/9780415249126-DD032-1
Version: v1,  Published online: 1998
Retrieved March 28, 2024, from https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/kemp-smith-norman-1872-1958/v-1

Article Summary

Norman Kemp Smith is now most widely known for his translation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. This was begun in 1913 while Kemp Smith was completing his Commentary on Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason which, together with his classic studies on Descartes and Hume, established his reputation as the greatest British philosophical scholar of his day. But he was also an outstanding member of the now forgotten British ‘Critical Realist’ movement, much respected by A.N. Whitehead, which also included among others Kemp Smith’s mentor Robert Adamson, Adamson’s English pupil G. Dawes Hicks, James Ward, and his pupil G.F. Stout. Science and scientistic fallacies, psychology, including developmental psychology and the histories of science and philosophy were alike concerns of a group of independent thinkers. Their work was obscured by subsequent English philosophers’ lack of attention, and the prevailing false assumption that the work of those antecedent thinkers was dominated comprehensively by views mistakenly attributed to ‘Hegel’ or ‘Idealism’.

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Citing this article:
Calder, Robert R. and George Davie. Kemp Smith, Norman (1872–1958), 1998, doi:10.4324/9780415249126-DD032-1. Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Taylor and Francis, https://www.rep.routledge.com/articles/biographical/kemp-smith-norman-1872-1958/v-1.
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