Norman Duncan Kemp Smith, FBA, FRSE (5 May 1872 – 3 September 1958) was a Scottish philosopher who was Professor of Psychology (1906–1914) and Philosophy (1914–1919) at Princeton University and was Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at the University of Edinburgh (1919–1945).[1]
Norman Smith was born on 5 May 1872[4] in Dundee, Scotland,[5] the son of a cabinet-maker on the Nethergate.[6] He was educated in Dundee and then studied mental philosophy at the University of St Andrews, graduating with an MA with first-class honours in 1893.[7] He received his doctorate (PhD) in 1902.
In 1938 he moved to 14 Kilgraston Road in south Edinburgh, a house designed by Sir Robert Matthew.[10]
His translation of Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason is often used as the standard English version of the text. His commentaries on the Critique are also well regarded, as are his works on David Hume and other philosophers. He was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1947 to 1948. A portrait by the Edinburgh artist Adam Bruce Thomson is held by the University of Edinburgh's Fine Art Collection.[11]
Kemp Smith died on 3 September 1958 in Edinburgh.[7]
^Cowley, Fraser (1969). "Review of The Credibility of Divine Existence. The Collected Papers of Norman Kemp Smith. Edited by A. J. D. Porteous, R. D. MacLennan, and G. E. Davie". Dialogue. 8 (1): 126–128. doi:10.1017/S0012217300039846. ISSN0012-2173.
Loeb, Louis E. (2009). "What is Worth Preserving in the Kemp Smith Interpretation of Hume?" British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 17(4), 769–797. doi:10.1080/09608780903135105
Norman Kemp Smith (1872-1958) hosted by The Hume Society, selected from Geoffrey Gorham, Continuum Encyclopedia of British Philosophy (2006), ed. A.C. Grayling, Naomi Goulder, and Andrew Pyle