page_title: William Wallace (philosopher)
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: William Wallace (philosopher) / Life
caption_attribution_description: English: Merton College in July 2013
context_page_description: William Wallace was a Scottish philosopher and academic who became fellow of Merton College and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford University. He was best known for his studies of German philosophers, most notably Hegel, some of whose works he translated into highly regarded English editions. While reputedly forbidding in manner, he was known as an able and effective teacher and writer who succeeded in greatly improving the understanding of German philosophy in the English-speaking world. He died at the age of 52 after a bicycle accident near Oxford.
context_section_description: Wallace was born at Railway Place in Cupar, Fife, the son of master-builder James Wallace and Jane Kelloch. He was the elder of two brothers and was educated at Madras Academy (now Bell Baxter High School) in Cupar before going on to St Andrews University to study arts. He developed a strong interest in the natural world, which led him to spend much time on walks in the countryside, cycling, botany and mountaineering.
  Although his parents had encouraged him to take up the study of theology as a precursor to a career in the clergy, Wallace realised that this would not best suit him and chose instead to study the Classics. He was awarded an exhibition at Balliol College, Oxford, where he studied from 1864. In 1867 he became a fellow of Merton College. He gained his Bachelor of Arts the following year, gaining a first class in Moderations and in Literae Humaniores. He was also awarded the Gaisford Prize in 1867 for his work on Greek prose, becoming a tutor at Merton in the same year, and was elected as a Craven Scholar in 1869. His Master of Arts followed in 1871 and he was appointed as Merton's librarian.
  Wallace married Janet Barclay, a childhood friend from Cupar, on 4 April 1872. The couple had three children, a daughter and two sons. His younger brother Edwin Wallace studied at Oxford's Lincoln College and later served as vice-provost of Worcester College between 1881 and his death in 1884. In 1882, Wallace became the successor to Thomas Hill Green as White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford, a position which he held along with the Merton tutorship until his death fifteen years later.
  His "brusque and sarcastic" manner earned him the nickname "the Dorian", a nickname he acquired at Balliol, though this was said to conceal a "generous and affectionate" nature. He was described as a man of "much genuine nobleness and a staunch uprightness of thought and speech" whose "acquaintances were numerous and friendly, but his intimates few and attached."
  Wallace's work focused primarily on the study and diffusion of the ideas of the German philosophers Kant, Fichte, Herder, and Hegel, of whom it was said that his knowledge was exceptional. He was highly regarded as a teacher and lecturer, usually speaking without notes in a style described as "humorous, elegant, and yet earnest" that "produced a unique impression of insight and sincerity upon his students." He sought to encourage his students to think critically and aimed to explain the sometimes arcane and technical nature of philosophical constructs in a way that was both readily understandable and expressed imaginatively, for instance commenting in one of his works that "the Absolute Idea [of Hegel] may be compared to the old man who utters the same creed as a child, but for whom it is pregnant with the significance of a lifetime".
caption: Merton College, Oxford
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