Schiller Biografia

Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller. Biografia

Ferdinand Canning Scott Schiller was born on 16 August 1864 in Schleswig-Holstein on the Danish side of the border. His father, of German origin, was a Calcutta merchant who gave his three sons British educations. After Rugby School, Schiller entered Oxford and Balliol, where Master Benjamin Jowett, T. H. Green, Edward Caird, Wallace, and Nettleship were founding British neo-idealism in the 1880s. Schiller was awarded Firsts in Classical Moderations and in Greats, the Taylorian Scholarship for German in 1887, and the B.A. degree. After teaching German for a year at Eton, he returned to Oxford for the M.A. degree. In 1893 he arrived at Cornell University to be an Instructor in logic and metaphysics and to do additional graduate work. He was not able to secure his Ph.D. at Cornell, but the long-awaited call to Oxford and Corpus Christi College came in 1897. He was an assistant tutor, tutor, senior tutor, and then fellow, and along the way he received the Oxford degree of D.Sc. in 1906. From 1900 to 1926 Schiller served as the treasurer of the Mind Association. He was President of the Aristotelian Society, President of the British Society for Psychical Research, and a Fellow of the British Academy (1926).

Schiller maintained a close interest in three areas besides traditional issues of philosophy: psychical research, educational reform, and eugenics. He defended the legitimacy of scientifically investigating psychical phenomena while personally maintaining a sound skepticism. He recommended university reforms away from the classics and pure logic towards science and applied subjects. In the area of eugenics, Schiller was also a vigorous advocate of a variety of eugenics "reforms." He was a founding member of the English Eugenics Society, served as its Vice-President in 1909, and sat on its Council in 1910-11, 1916, and 1936. He attended the First International Eugenics Congress in 1912.

Schiller retired from teaching at Corpus Christi in 1926, although remaining a Senior Fellow until his death. Also in that year he began his relationship with the University of Southern California, starting with a special visiting Lectureship, and later becoming a Professor and recipient of USC's honorary LL.D. He spent part of each year at Oxford and part at USC from 1926 to 1935, and lived year-round in Los Angeles until his death on 9 August 1937.