Norman Kemp Smith
contemporaryBritish Idealism / Kantian Scholarship1872 – 1958
Norman Kemp Smith (1872–1958) was a Scottish philosopher best known for his authoritative scholarship on Kant and Hume, holding chairs at Princeton and the University of Edinburgh. His translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason became the standard English rendering for much of the twentieth century. He also made original contributions to philosophy of religion, arguing for a pragmatically grounded theistic idealism.
Notable Achievements
1
Produced the definitive English translation of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1929)
2
Authored A Commentary to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (1918), a landmark secondary work
3
Wrote The Philosophy of David Hume (1941), a comprehensive interpretive study
4
Developed a pragmatically grounded idealist theism in Prolegomena to an Idealist Theory of Knowledge (1924)
5
Delivered the Gifford Lectures, exploring the rational credibility of divine existence