John Laird
- Category : Humanities+Social-Sciences-Philosopher
- Type : GP
- Profile : 3/5 - Martyr / Heretic
- Definition : Split - Large
- Incarnation Cross : RAX Contagion 2
Biography
John Laird was a Scottish philosopher, in the school of New British Realism, who later turned to metaphysical idealism.
He was born in Durris.
He attended the grammar school of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh, where in 1908 he graduated with a first class M.A. degree in philosophy. He spent a brief interval at Heidelberg before entering Trinity College, Cambridge, as a Scholar. He graduated from Cambridge with a B.A.,1st class in both parts of the Moral Sciences tripos. (He received his Cambridge M.A. in 1920.) He was an Assistant Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews in 1911 and took up a Professorship of Philosophy at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nove Scotia, in 1912. In the following year he returned to the United Kingdom as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Queen's University, Belfast (1913–24). In 1924 he was appointed Regius Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, a position which he held until his death. He was Mills Lecturer, University of California, 1923-4 and Gifford Lecturer, Glasgow University, 1939-40. Laird was president of the Aristotelian Society from 1929 to 1930. He was a prolific writer and public speaker.