Edward Payson Evans

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Edward Payson Evans
Portrait from History of the University of Michigan (1906)
Born(1831-12-08)December 8, 1831
Remsen, New York, U.S.
DiedMarch 6, 1917(1917-03-06) (aged 85)
New York City, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Michigan (B.A., 1854)
Occupations
  • Scholar
  • linguist
  • educator
Years active1855–1917
Notable work
Spouse
Elizabeth Edson Gibson
​
​
(m. 1868; died 1911)​

Edward Payson Evans (December 8, 1831 – March 6, 1917) was an American scholar, linguist, and educator. Educated at the University of Michigan, he taught modern languages in the United States before continuing his studies in Germany, where he spent much of his career. Evans wrote on German literature, comparative linguistics, animal trials, and the ethical status of animals. His books included Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology (1897), which discussed evolutionary theory, moral philosophy, and animal consciousness, and The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (1906), a study of historical legal proceedings against animals in Europe.

Biography

Evans was born in Remsen, New York, on December 8, 1831.[1] His father was the Reverend Evan Evans,[2] a Welsh Presbyterian clergyman.[3] Evans earned a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan in 1854.[2] He taught at an academy in Hernando, Mississippi, in 1855, and was a professor at Carroll College in Waukesha, Wisconsin, from 1856 to 1857.[4]

From 1858 to 1862, Evans studied at the University of Göttingen, the Friedrich Wilhelm University of Berlin, and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München.[5] After returning to the United States, he became professor of modern languages at the University of Michigan.[5] In 1868, he married Elizabeth Edson Gibson.[6] In 1870, he resigned from Michigan and returned to Europe, where he collected material for a history of German literature[5] and studied oriental languages.[7]

While living in Munich, Evans worked regularly at the Royal Library of Munich[8] and joined the staff of the political journal Allgemeine Zeitung in 1884.[4] After his wife's death in 1911 and the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, he returned to the United States. He lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and New York City.[8]

Evans died at his home in New York City on March 6, 1917.[3]

Reception

Evans' 1906 book The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals has been described as a major work on animal trials.[9] Aleks Pluskowski has criticized parts of the book's interpretation and documentation.[10]

Environmental historian Roderick Nash wrote that Evans and J. Howard Moore "deserve more recognition than they have received as the first professional philosophers in the United States to look beyond anthropocentrism".[11] Bernard E. Rollin cited Evans' Evolutional Ethics and Animal Psychology as an example of writing by contemporaries of Darwin who used evolutionary theory in arguments for the ethical treatment of animals.[12]

Publications

Articles

Books

Translations

  • Adolf Stahr, The Life and Works of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (with an introduction; 2 vols., Boston, 1866)
  • Athanase Josué Coquerel, First Historical Transformations of Christianity (1867)

References

  1. Heyse, Paul Johann Ludwig von (1899). "Evans, Edward P. geb. 1831 in Remsen (Staat NY), gest. 1917" [Evans, Edward P. born 1831 in Remsen (NY State), died 1917]. Das literarische München: 25 Porträtskizzen [The Literary Munich: 25 Portrait Sketches] (in German).
  2. Hinsdale, B. A.; Demmon, Isaac Newton (1906). History of the University of Michigan. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan. p. 237.
  3. "Edward Payson Evans Dies". The New York Times. March 8, 1917. p. 11. Retrieved January 21, 2020 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. "Evans, Edward Payson" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography. 1900. p. 381.
  5. "Evans, Edward P." . The American Cyclopædia. Vol. VI. 1879.
  6. "Evans, Elizabeth Edson". Chicago Examiner. Vol. 9, no. 230. September 15, 1911. Archived from the original on October 6, 2021. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  7. "Evans, Edward Payson" . Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. X. 1920.
  8. Evans, Edward Payson; Humphrey, Nicholas (1987). "Foreword". The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals. London: Faber & Faber. p. xxviii. ISBN 978-0-571-14893-6.
  9. Szerlip, B. Alexandra (June 25, 2021). "Animal Trials: The Quest for Order in a Chaotic World". Berfrois. Archived from the original on June 25, 2021. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  10. "Commissioned Text: Aleks Pluskowski on YEAST". [ SPACE ]. September 2016. Archived from the original on May 16, 2021. Retrieved October 6, 2021.
  11. Nash, Roderick Frazier (1989). The Rights of Nature: A History of Environmental Ethics. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. p. 122. ISBN 978-0-299-11843-3.
  12. Rollin, Bernard E. (September 1, 2007). "Animal Mind: Science, Philosophy, and Ethics". The Journal of Ethics. 11 (3): 253–274. doi:10.1007/s10892-007-9018-3. ISSN 1572-8609.

Further reading