Dawes Hicks

George Dawes Hicks FBA (14 September 1862 – 16 February 1941) was a British philosopher who was the first professor of moral philosophy at University College London from 1904 until 1928 and professor emeritus thereafter until his death.

Biography

Hicks, eldest son of solicitor Christopher Hicks, was born in Shrewsbury on 14 September 1862 and educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford. He initially went on to study law within his father's legal practice. Hicks won a scholarship and went, in 1884, to Owens College Manchester to study philosophy (and gain some knowledge of the natural sciences). He did so under Robert Adamson "whose philosophical scholarship and acuteness exercised the most radical and lasting effect upon his. pupil's life and teaching". (Wollf notes that Hicks is sometimes referred to as a Grote Professor, but that he was never given the title and, indeed may not have been entitled to hold it, due to his involvement in religious ministry. where he regularly lectured at the university, under the auspices of the Faculty of Moral Science, on Psychology and on the Philosophy of Kant (and examined in the Moral Sciences Tripos on the former).

Philosophical theism

Hicks was a Christian theist in his personal life but authored The Philosophical Bases Of Theism, a work on philosophical theism based on his Hibbert Lectures from 1931. The book utilized cosmological, moral and teleological arguments for the existence of God. Hicks rejected any form of mysticism and disputed the evidence of religious belief from mystical experiences. The book argued for theism but was not concerned with Christianity or any other specific revelation. It has been described as Hicks' "most able and impressive work". The collection includes texts of his lectures given at UCL and Owens College Manchester, and notes on a campaign to establish a teaching university within the University of London. Critical Realism (1938)

Select journal articles/book chapters

"Sense-Presentation and Thought", Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series, Vol. 6 (1905–1906), pp. 271–346, reprinted in The Emergence of Analytic Philosophy and a Controversy at the Aristotelian Society, 1900 - 1916: Virtual Issue No. 2 (2014) "The Nature and Development of Attention" British Journal of Psychology, Volume V, Part 1, 1913

"Appearances and Real Existence" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Volume XIV (1913–1914), pp. 1–48 reprinted in The Emergence of Analytic Philosophy and a Controversy at the Aristotelian Society, 1900 - 1916: Virtual Issue No. 2 (2014) "The Nature of Willing" Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society New Series, Vol. 13 (1912–1913), pp. 27–65 "The Nature of Sense-Data", Mind Vol. 21, No. 83 (Jul. 1912), pp. 399–409. [see also: "The Nature of Sense-Data.-A Reply to Dr. Dawes Hicks", by Bertrand Russell, Mind, Vol. 22, No. 85 (Jan. 1913), pp. 76–78]

"From Idealism to Realism" in Contemporary British philosophy (1925)

Further scholarly works

"Foreword" in Kant's Conception Of God by F. E. England (1929) "A Century of Philosophy at University College, London" (1928) Journal of Philosophical Studies, Vol. 3, No. 12 (Oct. 1928), pp. 468–482