John Grote

John Grote (5 May 1813 – 21 August 1866) was an English moral philosopher and Anglican clergyman. The son of a banker, John Grote was the younger brother of the historian, philosopher, and reformer George Grote. He received his education at Beckenham School, Kent, and subsequently attended Trinity College, Cambridge, starting in 1831. He earned a first-class degree in the Classics Tripos in 1835 and was elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1837. From 1847 until his death, he held the position of vicar of Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, where he was a neighbour to his close friend Robert Leslie Ellis, a mathematician and Bacon scholar. In 1855, Grote succeeded William Whewell as the Knightbridge professor of moral philosophy at Cambridge University. During his lifetime, Grote published relatively little. Volume I of his work, *Exploratio Philosophica: Rough Notes on Modern Intellectual Science*, was published in 1865. His work, *An Examination of the Utilitarian Philosophy*, was published posthumously in 1870. His literary executor and editor, Joseph Bickersteth Mayor, also compiled *A Treatise on the Moral Ideals* (1876) and Volume II of *Exploratio Philosophica* (1900). Grote identified as a philosophical idealist and was an opponent of utilitarianism, consistent with his Cambridge and Anglican clerical background. He was open to incorporating the new experimental psychology, as exemplified by Alexander Bain, but insisted that such 'phenomenal' investigations should not be conflated with more properly 'philosophical' ones. Grote is credited with coining the word 'relativism', although his usage differed from its modern interpretation. He significantly influenced Michael Oakeshott and other philosophers emerging from Cambridge University.