STIRLING, JAMES HUTCHISON. – English philosopher, born on 22 January 1820 in Glasgow, died on 19 March 1909 in Edinburgh, at whose University he had been professor of moral philosophy.
A thinker of little originality, he has a certain historical importance, since with him one may date the beginning of Anglo-American neo-Hegelian idealism. In addition to minor writings (including Sir W. Hamilton, being the philosophy of perception, 1865; What is Thought, 1900), his essay The secret of Hegel (1865; 2nd ed., Edinburgh 1898) should be remembered, in which he expounds and defends the German philosopher’s system. For S., there is a close relationship between Kant and Hegel, whose philosophy criticism (v.). This is the “secret of Hegel.”
Michele Federico Sciacca