The Life and Philosophy of George Tucker

George Tucker (1775-1861) is particularly interesting and unusual among 19th-century American philosophers. An attorney and Congressman from Virginia, Tucker had a bent towards original thinking, which he expressed in a range of literary genres. He wrote the first biography of Thomas Jefferson, one of the first major histories of the United States, the first science fiction novel about the moon (Volume 3 in this collection), and the first southern US novel. He also wrote several influential books in economic thought and was a vocal opponent of slavery. While in Congress, he published a collection of essays on philosophical and political subjects, which attracted the attention of Jefferson who subsequently appointed him as the first professor of moral philosophy at the University of Virginia. Tucker believed that the state of philosophy in the United States was largely undeveloped and he attempted to address this deficiency. Near the end of his life he published a collection of pamphlets, lectures and essays on philosophy that he had written throughout his career. His essays grapple with many of the central problems of philosophy - such as the existence of the external world - in a