Scotland has played an immense role in European high culture through the centuries, and among its cultural links none have been greater than those with France. This book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment.

Some of the greatest writers on moral philosophy have claimed that their theories about morality do not run counter to the moral views of ordinary men, but on the contrary are an elucidation of such views, or provide them with a sound philosophical underpinning. Aristotle, for example, made it quite clear that he could not take seriously a moral view that was at odds with the heritage of moral wisdom deeply imbedded in his society. His doctrine of the mean was (...) based on a philosophical consideration of such wisdom. And Immanuel Kant thought that his moral philosophy articulated the moral views of ordinary men. (shrink)

Introduction The chief aim of this book is to give an account of two great periods in the history of Scottish culture. One is, inevitably, that of the ...

In Philosophy 51, October 1976, 471–472, Professor Tom Regan takes ud to task for our attack on Kant's theory concerning the moral status of animals. The ground of Regan's criticism is that ‘… it is clear that Kant does not suppose, as… Broadie and Pybus erroneously assume that he does, that the concept of maltreating an animal, on the one hand, and, on the other, the concept of using an animal as a means, are the same or logically equivalent concepts’ (...) . Regan argues that Kant does not say that we should avoid treating animals as a means. Rather, he claims, Kant's view is that we have an indirect duty not to maltreat animals, since in maltreating them we treat, or run the risk of treating, as a mere means rationality in ourselves or in others. (shrink)

A number of Scottish philosopher-logicians were especially prominent in the late flowering of the term logic. This book gives brief biographical sketches of the members of that distinguished circle, and then examines their logic in detail.

Winner of the Saltire Society Scottish History Book of the Year 2009. Shortlisted for the Saltire Society Scottish Research Book of the Year 2009 This is the first-ever account of the full 700-year-old Scottish philosophical tradition. The book focuses on a number of philosophers in the period from the later-13th century until the mid-20th and attends especially to some brilliantly original texts. The book also indicates ways in which philosophy has been intimately related to other aspects of Scotland's culture. Among (...) the greatest philosophers that Scotland has produced are John Duns Scotus, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. But there were many other fine, even brilliant philosophers who are less highly regarded, if they are noticed at all, such as John Mair, George Lokert, Frederick Ferrier, Andrew Seth, Norman Kemp Smith and John Macmurray. All these thinkers and many others are discussed in these pages. This clearly written and approachable book gives us a strong sense of the Scottish philosophical tradition. (shrink)

Adam Smith's ethics have long been thought to be much closer to the Stoic school than to any other school of the ancient world. Recent scholarship however has focused on the fact that Smith also appears to be quite close to Aristotle. I shall attend to Smith's deployment of a version of the doctrine of the mean, shall show that it is quite close to Aristotle's, shall demonstrate that in its detailed application it is seriously at odds with Stoic teaching (...) on the passions, and particularly with their teachings on anger, and shall conclude that on a central issue of ethics Smith is a good deal closer to Aristotelian than to Stoic thinking. (shrink)

Philosophy was at the core of the eighteenth century movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The movement included major figures, such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson, and also many others who produced notable works, such as Gershom Carmichael, George Turnbull, George Campbell, James Beattie, Alexander Gerard, Henry Home (Lord Kames) and Dugald Stewart. I discuss some of the leading ideas of these thinkers, though paying less attention than I otherwise would to Hume, Smith (...) and Reid, who have separate Encyclopedia entries. Amongst the topics covered in this entry are aesthetics (particularly Hutcheson's), Moral philosophy (particularly Hutcheson's and Smith's), Turnbull's providential naturalism, Kames's doctrines on divine goodness and human freedom, Campbell's criticism of the Humean account of miracles, the philosophy of rhetoric, Ferguson's criticism of the idea of a state of nature, and finally the concept of conjectural history, a concept especially associated with Dugald Stewart. (shrink)

During the last few months of his life James Dundas, first Lord Arniston (c. 1620–79), wrote a monograph on moral philosophy. It appears never to have been mentioned in any work whether academic or otherwise. It includes a discussion promoting three doctrines against Hobbes. First, that something is simply good and something is simply bad, and that the first rule of morals is not self-love, but the glory of God. Secondly, the state of nature is not a state of war. (...) Thirdly, contra Hobbes, the chief point in natural law is not that each person has a right to use all ways and means to preserve himself. This paper probes Dundas's arguments for his three doctrines. (shrink)

The early 16th century was a time of intense intellectual activity during which ideas central to the disputes between traditionalists and reformers were being refined. This is the first full-length study of the quest for the answer to the question then being asked: "What is knowlege?" Broadie focuses on the distinction between sensory and intellectual cognition, and on the concept of "notion" which was central to the epistemological debates of the period, paying special attention to the doctrines of John Mair, (...) David Cranston, Gilbert Crab, George Lokert and Gervaise Waim, all philosophers at the University of Paris between 1500 and 1530 who represented the intellectual tradition confronting the reformers. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment offers a philosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century movement that has been profoundly influential on western culture. A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Colin Maclaurin and other Scottish thinkers, in fields including philosophy, natural theology, economics, anthropology, natural science and law. In addition, the contributors relate the Scottish Enlightenment to its historical context and assess its impact and legacy in Europe, America and beyond. (...) The result is a comprehensive and accessible volume that illuminates the richness, the intellectual variety and the underlying unity of this important movement. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology, literature and the history of ideas. (shrink)

In his lengthy introduction, Alexander Broadie emphasizes not only the diversity of intellectual discussion taking place in Scotland, but also the European ...

Two seventeeth-century Scottish Catholic philosophers, Robert Balfour and William Chalmers, are introduced and their accounts of the metaphysics of the Eucharist are discussed. Their ideas are largely in terms of the Aristotelian concepts of substance, accident and inherence, with special attention paid to the idea that the essence of an accident is not its actual inherence (that is, its act of inhering) in a substance but its aptness for inherence in a substance. Balfour appears to accept this (Thomist) doctrine. But (...) Chalmers has a different story to tell. He holds that the essence of an accident is not its actual inherence or its power to inhere (which includes its aptness for inherence), but instead belongs to what he terms the ‘root and basis’ of that power. I speculate briefly about a possible Scotistic interpretation of his words. (shrink)

Medieval logicians advanced far beyond the logic of Aristotle, and this book shows how far that advance took them in two central areas. Broadie focuses upon the work of some of the great figures of the fourteenth century, including Walter Burley, William Ockham, John Buridan, Albert of Saxony, and Paul of Venice, and deals with their theories of truth conditions and validity conditions. He reveals how much of what seems characteristically twentieth-century logic was familiar long ago. Broadie has extensively revised (...) his text for this second edition, while preserving the character of the first. There are now fuller accounts of supposition, of intentional contexts, and of medieval syllogistic, and the conclusion has been substantially expanded. (shrink)

CHAPTER Introduction I do not take lightly the title of this book. I believe that Scottish philosophy matters greatly and my principal aim is to say why it ...

John Mair, Scotland's leading theologian in the half-century prior to the Scottish Reformation, argued that an assent of faith requires a movement not only of the intellect but also of the will, and that, to that extent, the assent of faith is subject to voluntary control and is therefore a free act. Mair's argument is expounded and analysed, and attention is paid to his relationship to his great predecessor John Duns Scotus.

An account, based principally on Ferguson's Essay on the History of Civil Society, of his concept of enlightened governance, and of the relation between that concept and his concept of human nature.

Knowledge and Faith in Thomas Aquinas. John I. Jenkins. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 267. 35.00 hb. ISBN 0-521-58126-5. The Cambridge Companion to Aquinas. Norman Kretzmann and Eleonore Stump. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993. pp. 302. 12.95 pb. ISBN 0-521-43769-5. The Metaphysics of Theism: Aquinas's Natural Theology in the Summa Contra Gentiles I. Norman Kretzmann. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997. pp. 302. 35.00 hb. ISBN 0-19-823660-3. Thomas Aquinas: God and Explanations. C. F. J. Martin. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 1997. (...) pp. 212. 40.00 hb. ISBN 0-7486-0901-6. Theories of Cognition in the Later Middle Ages. Robert Pasnau. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997. pp. 330. 37.00 hb. ISBN 0-521-58368-3. (shrink)

CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION Our subject is the philosophy, till now totally neglected, of the Samaritan thinker Marqah. ...

Each human being is a co-creator of the world and when a human being dies the world he co-created is thereby annihilated. The main authors discussed are Thomas Aquinas, John Duns Scotus and David Hume.

Quelle sorte de contrôle et, par suite, de responsabilité, avons-nous à l'égard de nos croyances? Dans quelle mesure pouvons-nous décider de croire? Cette question agite la philosophie européenne depuis Aristote, les stoïciens, et les sceptiques ; avec les médiévaux, elle croise celle de la responsabilité du chrétien à l'égard de sa foi ; avec les modernes, elle rencontre le problème pratique de la tolérance. Cet ouvrage explore ainsi l'histoire de la controverse sur le rôle de la volonté dans ce que (...) les classiques appellent l'assentiment. Il le fait non dans une perspective d'érudition, mais avec pour objectif de contribuer à une meilleure intelligence d'une question qui connaît aujourd'hui un important regain d'intérêt, dans le domaine de l'épistémologie, de la psychologie, ou de la philosophie de la religion, et dont les enjeux éthiques et politiques sont évidents. Les contributeurs s'aident en retour des outils que la philosophie de l'esprit, durant ces dernières décennies, a développés, pour démêler ce qui, dans la croyance, dépend de l'initiative du croyant, et ce qui ne dépend pas de lui. (shrink)

Entre los muchos filósofos de la Ilustración escocesa que hablan favorablemente de la filosofía estoica están Francis Hutcheson y Adam Smith, dos hombres que se relacionaron en la Universidad de Glasgow, como profesor y agradecido estudiante. Como un primer paso para establecer hasta qué punto los filósofos de la Ilustración Escocesa fueron deudores de los estoicos, en este artículo investigo las posturas de Hutcheson y Smith con el fin de demostrar que, al menos en algunas materias relacionadas con la corrección (...) de tener pasiones y expresarlas, ambos filósofos escoceses fueron hostiles hacia típicas doctrinas estoicas. (shrink)