BAIN, ALEXANDER. - Scottish philosopher and educationist, b. at Aberdeen in 1818, d. there in 1903. He taught at the Universities of Glasgow, London and Aberdeen.
Principal works, besides several scientific translations and publications of a literary character: The Senses and the Intellect, Oxford 1855; The Emotions and the Will, ibid. 1859; The study of Character, ibid. 1861; Compendium of Psychology and Ethics, London 1868; Logic deductive and inductive, ibid. 1870; The relations of Mind and Body, ibid. 1873; Education as a Science, ibid. 1879, etc. In 1876 he founded the journal Mind, in which he published various essays.
B. is the last great representative and the foremost systematizer of the classical associationist school. B.'s thought is the direct continuation of that of J. Stuart Mill, his teacher and friend, and may be summed up in his having extended the principle of association to the processes of the will, in his recognition of the importance of physiological factors, and in the constructive function that the sensation of muscular effort has in the genesis of perceptions (Fabro). In associations he distinguishes two basic forms: of contiguity and of similarity. In admitting attention among the factors under whose influence associations are formed, however, he weakens the mechanical character of associationism. B. also dealt with pedagogy, naturally in a positivist sense, treating exclusively questions of teaching and of school discipline. B. marks a phase of transition in the history of psychology. He sought to give his researches a more decidedly experimental stamp, so as to be defined as the epigone of philosophical psychology and the herald of experimental-physiological psychology.
Bibliography5 works
Felicissimo Tinivella