Philosopher and clergyman. Born in Peebles in the Scottish Borders, Calderwood was educated at the Royal High School in Edinburgh and the University of Edinburgh. He was ordained as a minister and took charge of Greyfriars Church in Glasgow in 1856. He taught philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1861 and was appointed to the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh in 1868.
His most notable work was The Philosophy of the Infinite (1854), in which he disagreed with the theories of Sir William Hamilton (1788 - 1856), but he also wrote A Handbook of Moral Philosophy (1872), On the Relations of Mind and Brain, Science and Religion (1879), Parables of Our Lord (1880), The Evolution of Man's Place in Nature (1893), which argues for God's role in evolution, and a Life of David Hume (1897).
He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Glasgow in 1865 and elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh four years later. He died at his home in the Merchiston district of Edinburgh. His funeral filled Morningside United Presbyterian Church and he lies buried in Morningside Cemetery.
