Schiller, Ferdinand Canning Scott(1864–1937)
Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller, the British pragmatist philosopher, was born in Schleswig-Holstein and studied at Rugby and at Balliol College, Oxford. After teaching German at Eton, he returned to Oxford for his MA. In 1893 he went to Cornell University as an instructor and graduate student. In 1897, without receiving a doctorate, he returned to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was successively assistant tutor, tutor, senior tutor, and fellow and where he received a DSc in 1906. He served as treasurer of the Mind Association and president of the Aristotelian Society (1921), and he was elected a fellow of the British Academy in 1926. From 1926 on, Schiller spent part of each year at the University of Southern California as visiting lecturer and then as professor; in 1935 he moved there permanently.
Pragmatism
Schiller's views, which he called at various times humanism, voluntarism, and personalism, as well as pragmatism, were strongly influenced by William James; and Schiller paid James great tribute, although he claimed to have arrived at his opinions independently. There was, however, an important difference of emphasis between them: James stressed the purposive aspect of thinking, and Schiller, the personal. James also accepted the independence of what is objectively given, whereas Schiller regarded all knowledge, even of "facts," as relatively subjective.
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