George Frederick Stout

Biography Born in South Shields on 6 January 1860, Stout studied psychology at the University of Cambridge under James Ward. Like Ward, Stout employed a philosophical approach to psychology and opposed the theory of associationism.

It was as a fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge (1884–1896), that Stout published his first work in 1896: the two-volume Analytic Psychology, whose view of the role of activity in intellectual processes was later verified experimentally by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget. The term analytic psychology is Stout's translation of Brentano's term deskriptive Psychologie – descriptive psychology. (Cf. Analytic psychology in Dilthey.)

Stout was appointed to a new lectureship in comparative psychology at the University of Aberdeen in 1896, before becoming reader in mental philosophy at the University of Oxford (1898–1902), where he published his Manual of Psychology in 1899. This work formulated many principles later developed experimentally by the Gestalt school of psychology. In addition, from 1891 to 1920, he served as editor of Mind, a leading philosophical journal, and was president of Aristotelian Society from 1899 to 1904. In metaphysics, Stout is well known for his contribution to trope theory, specifically in the form of a 1923 paper for the Aristotelian Society. He delivered the Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh over 1919–1921, a first volume based on the same, was published as Mind and Matter in 1931. A second volume was published posthumously under the editorship of his son as God & Nature in 1952.

Significant publications Analytic Psychology (1896) Manual of Psychology (1899, 3rd revised edition 1924) Studies in Philosophy and Psychology (1930) Mind & Matter (1931) God & Nature (1952)