Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge

Frederick James Eugene Woodbridge (March 26, 1867 – June 1, 1940) was a Canadian-born American philosopher. Woodbridge considered himself a naïve realist, deeply impressed with George Santayana. He spent much of his career as a dean (of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science) at Columbia University, where a residence hall and a professorship in philosophy are named in his honor. He was editor of the Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods.

Biography

He was born on March 26, 1867, in Windsor, Ontario, to James Woodbridge and Melissa Ella Bingham. In 1869 his family moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. In 1885 he enrolled at Amherst College where he studied philosophy and religion under Charles Edward Garman. He graduated from Amherst with an A.B. in 1889 and then he enrolled at the Union Theological Seminary. In 1892 he left Union on a fellowship and went to Germany to study philosophy at the Humboldt University of Berlin, where he received the Ph.D. He returned to the United States in 1894. He took a teaching position at the University of Minnesota. He married Helena Belle Adams of Cincinnati, Ohio, on June 25, 1895, in Chicago, Illinois. They had 4 children, Frederick James Woodbridge, John Woodbridge, Donald Woodbridge, and Helena Woodbridge.

In 1902 Woodbridge left the University of Minnesota for New York City and a position at Columbia University. In 1904 he co-founded with James McKeen Cattell, The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. Woodbridge taught philosophy at Columbia from 1902 until 1912 when he became the university's Dean of the Faculties of Political Science, Philosophy, and Pure Science. In 1929 he retired as Dean but continued to teach. He retired from teaching in 1937, but he continued to edit The Journal of Philosophy until his death in 1940.