Phineas Parkhurst Quimby

THOMAS COGSWELL UPHAM

(1799-1872)

Thomas Cogswell Upham, philosopher and educator, was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire, and educated at Dartmouth College and Andover Theological Seminary. In 1824, three years after graduating from Andover, Upham was appointed Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy at Bowdoin College, where he remained until his retirement in 1867. The results of Upham's lectures at Bowdoin were embodied in the Elements of Intellectual Philosophy (.pdf) a text which, in its numerous incarnations and editions, dominated the American scene for fifty years.

The first thirteen chapters of Upham's Elements appeared in a preliminary printing in 1826, followed in 1827 by the full text. In this first edition, Upham resisted the temptation to provide a classification of the mental operations. By 1831, however, when he expanded the work to two volumes under the title Elements of Mental Philosophy (.pdf), he had adopted a two-fold classification in terms of intellect and sensibilities. After 1834, when he published his Treatise on the Will, Upham moved to a tri-partite classification; and this system was laid out in its final form in 1869 in Mental Philosophy; Embracing the Three Departments of the Intellect, Sensibilities and Will (.pdf). 

Generally eclectic in his orientation, Upham drew the major inspiration for the first edition of his textbook from Locke and Reid, turning more heavily to Brown in later editions. His treatment of will reflected an attempt to reach a compromise between an ontological pre-determinism inherited from his Calvinist ancestors and the evidence of consciousness as to mental freedom. Indeed, Upham's most important contribution to American thought and culture may have been the extent to which he introduced generations of American students to the exploration of human conscious experience as a source of psychological understanding.