Noah Porter was an American Congregationalist clergyman, philosopher, and psychologist, and president of Yale College from 1871 to 1886. As a student in the Yale Divinity School, Porter had become a disciple of Nathaniel W. Taylor's modified version of New England Calvinism. For ten years he preached Taylorism at churches in New Milford, Connecticut (1836–1843), and Springfield, Massachusetts (1843–1846). He was then appointed Clark professor of moral philosophy and metaphysics at Yale, holding this chair throughout his tenure of the presidency of the college. On retiring from the office of president, he resumed a small teaching load until his death.

Porter's thought until 1853 was dominated by the conventional Scottish commonsense realism that pervaded American colleges. Then two years spent in Europe, largely in study at the University of Berlin, increased his familiarity with more recent and more daring philosophical systems. He became particularly interested, through the German philosopher...