This is Thomas Reid's greatest work. It covers far more philosophical ground than the earlier, more popular Inquiry. The Intellectual Powers and its companion volume, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, constitute the fullest, most original presentation of the philosophy of Common Sense. In the process, Reid provides acutely critical discussions of an impressive array of thinkers but especially of David Hume. In Reid's eyes, Hume had driven a deep tendency in modern philosophy to its ultimate conclusions by creating (...) a phantom-world of so-called 'ideas' that sprang from objects of observation; the self was a conglomeration of perceived ideas; and the will as the source of action was nothing but the balance of passionate impulses. -/- Reid's Common Sense philosophy answers these problems by suggesting that sceptics, such as Hume, unavoidably affirm what they purport to deny, namely the existence of a stable external world, of other minds, of the continuity of their own minds, and of their own and other people's ability to ascribe and accept responsibility for actions. We can understand all of this by proper empirical observation and philosophical analysis of the activity of the mind. Reid's major positive contribution to philosophy is a detailed account of the various innate powers of the mind. While particularly influential in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reid's work has retained a significant role in philosophy, not least in recent years. At the same time, his role in the Scottish Enlightenment is becoming much better understood. -/- This is the only properly established text. It is accompanied by manuscript lectures on the nature and immortality of the soul, as well as helpful editorial annotation and introduction, making it useful to a wide variety of readers. -/- Key Features: -/- Accurate, reliable and critically established text; The Introduction explains the work's genesis and its place in Reid's system; Annotations provide an understanding of Reid's context; An Appendix contains manuscript material covering an important topic not represented in the hitherto published work. (shrink)

This is Thomas Reid's greatest work. It covers far more philosophical ground than the earlier, more popular Inquiry. The Intellectual Powers and its companion volume, Essays on the Active Powers of Man, constitute the fullest, most original presentation of the philosophy of Common Sense. In the process, Reid provides acutely critical discussions of an impressive array of thinkers but especially of David Hume. In Reid's eyes, Hume had driven a deep tendency in modern philosophy to its ultimate conclusions by creating (...) a phantom-world of so-called 'ideas' that sprang from objects of observation; the self was a conglomeration of perceived ideas; and the will as the source of action was nothing but the balance of passionate impulses.Reid's Common Sense philosophy answers these problems by suggesting that sceptics, such as Hume, unavoidably affirm what they purport to deny, namely the existence of a stable external world, of other minds, of the continuity of their own minds, and of their own and other people's ability to ascribe and accept responsibility for actions. We can understand all of this by proper empirical observation and philosophical analysis of the activity of the mind. Reid's major positive contribution to philosophy is a detailed account of the various innate powers of the mind. While particularly influential in the first half of the nineteenth century, Reid's work has retained a significant role in philosophy, not least in recent years. At the same time, his role in the Scottish Enlightenment is becoming much better understood.This is the only properly established text. It is accompanied by manuscript lectures on the nature and immortality of the soul, as well as helpful editorial annotation and introduction, making it useful to a wide variety of readers.Key FeaturesAccurate, reliable and critically established textThe Introduction explains the work's genesis and its place in Reid's systemAnnotations provide an understanding of Reid's contextAn Appendix contains manuscript material covering an important topic not represented in the hitherto published work. (shrink)

The Essays on the Active Powers of Man was Thomas Reid's last major work. It was conceived as part of one large work, intended as a final synoptic statement of his philosophy. The first and larger part was published three years earlier as Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man. These two works are united by Reid's basic philosophy of common sense, which sets out native principles by which the mind operates in both its intellectual and active aspects. The Active (...) Powers shows how these principles are involved in volition, action, and the ability to judge morally. Reid gives an original twist to a libertarian and realist tradition that was prominently represented in eighteenth-century British thought by such thinkers as Samuel Clarke and Richard Price. (shrink)

Combining the methods of the modern philosopher with those of the historian of ideas, Knud Haakonssen presents an interpretation of the philosophy of law which Adam Smith developed out of - and partly in response to - David Hume's theory of justice. While acknowledging that the influences on Smith were many and various, Dr Haakonssen suggests that the decisive philosophical one was Hume's analysis of justice in A Treatise of Human Nature and the second Enquiry. He therefore begins with a (...) thorough investigation of Hume, from which he goes on to show the philosophical originality of Smith's new form of natural jurisprudence. At the same time, he provides an over all reading of Smith's social and political thought, demonstrating clearly the exact links between the moral theory of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Lectures on Jurisprudence, and the sociohistorical theory of The Wealth of Nations. This is the first full analysis of Adam Smith's jurisprudence; it emphasizes its normative and critical function, and relates this to the psychological, sociological, and histroical aspects which hitherto have attracted most attention. Dr Haakonssen is critical of both purely descriptivist and utilitarian interpretations of Smith's moral and political philosophy, and demonstrates the implausibility of regarding Smith's view of history as pseudo-economic or 'materialist'. (shrink)

This major contribution to the history of philosophy provides the most comprehensive guide to modern natural law theory available, sets out the full background to liberal ideas of rights and contractarianism, and offers an extensive study of the Scottish Enlightenment. The time span covered is considerable: from the natural law theories of Grotius and Suarez in the early seventeenth century to the American Revolution and the beginnings of utilitarianism. After a detailed survey of modern natural law theory, the book focuses (...) on the Scottish Enlightenment and its European and American connections. Knud Haakonssen explains the relationship between natural law and civic humanist republicanism, and he shows the relevance of these ideas for the understanding of David Hume and Adam Smith. The result is a completely revised background to modern ideas of liberalism and communitarianism. (shrink)

The Introduction sets the contributions to this special issue in the context of existing scholarship on Dugald Stewart. The main points are the great advance in our understanding of Stewart's intellectual development, his complicated relationship to his predecessors and contemporaries in Scottish philosophy, and his important role in the European republic of letters.

Although Adam Smith is best known as the founder of scientific economics and an early proponent of the modern market economy, political economy is only one part of his comprehensive intellectual system. Consisting of a theory of mind and its functions in language, arts, science and social intercourse, Smith's system was a towering contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment. This Companion provides an up-to-date examination of all aspects of Smith's thought. Collectively, the essays take into account his multiple contexts--Scottish, British, European, (...) Atlantic, biographical, institutional, political and philosophical. (shrink)

More than thirty eminent scholars from nine different countries have contributed to The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy - the most comprehensive and up-to-date history of the subject available in English. For the eighteenth century the dominant concept in philosophy was human nature and so it is around this concept that the work is centered. This allows the contributors to offer both detailed explorations of the epistemological, metaphysical and ethical themes that continue to stand at the forefront of philosophy, and (...) to voice a critical attitude to the historiography behind this emphasis in philosophical thought. At the same time due sensitivity is paid to historical context with particular emphasis on the connections between philosophy, science, and theology. This judiciously balanced, systematic, and comprehensive account of the whole of Western philosophy in the period will be an invaluable resource for philosophers, intellectual historians, theologians, political theorists, historians of science and literary scholars. (shrink)

The pervasiveness of Protestant natural law in the early modern period and its significance in the Scottish Enlightenment have long been recognized. This book reveals that Thomas Reid &—the great contemporary of David Hume and Adam Smith&—also worked in this tradition. When Reid succeeded Adam Smith as professor of moral philosophy in Glasgow in 1764, he taught a course covering pneumatology, practical ethics, and politics. This section on practical ethics took its starting point from the system of natural law and (...) rights published by Francis Hutcheson. Knud Haakonssen has reconstructed it here for the first time from Reid&’s manuscript lectures and papers, and it provides a considerable addition to our understanding not only of Reid but also of the thought of the Scottish Enlightenment and of the education system of the time. The present work is a revised version of a work first published by Princeton University Press in 1990, which has long been out of print. (shrink)

"Ludvig Holberg was the foremost representative of the Danish-Norwegian Enlightenment and also a European figure of note. He was an Enlightenment thinker in the conventional sense, with significant works in natural law and history, but also a very important body of moral essays and epistles. He authored several engaging autobiographies and European travelogues; and - not least - a major utopian novel that was a European bestseller, a couple of interesting satires, and a large number of plays, mainly comedies. These (...) comedies have secured Holberg's status as the most significant playwright in Scandinavia before Ibsen and Strindberg; his plays remain hugely popular and have hardly been off the stage since he died. Through his extensive oeuvre, but especially through his plays, Holberg had a decisive influence on the formation of modern Danish as a literary language, something that was a self-conscious effort on the part of a man who saw himself as an educator of the public. Despite all these accomplishments Holberg is most often remembered outside of the Nordic countries for Edvard Grieg's Holberg Suite and in the title of one of the most prestigious prizes in the humanities. It is the aim of the contributors to this volume to revive Holberg as a very major figure from a very minor corner of the Enlightenment world, presenting the latest scholarship from Scandinavia on the main areas of Holberg's work with serious emphasis on the wider European Enlightenment context and perspectives. It will appeal to all those researching intellectual history, history of philosophy, literary history/studies, theatre studies, church historiography, Scandinavian studies and Enlightenment Europe."--. (shrink)

"The papers in this volume were presented at a conference on 'The Liberal Tradition' in Sydney in August 1987"--P. x. Includes bibliographies and index.

The letters published here belong to the ‘Fonds Pierre Prevost’ held by the Library of Geneva. Our presentation of the letters is modelled on that of the published correspondences of Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. Our aim in transcribing the letters that follow has been to establish a clean and reliable text with minimal editorial intervention. We have made no attempt to normalise the spellings, capitalisation, and apparently aberrant usage found in the letters or to modernise the punctuation, and we (...) have not expanded the contractions that occur in the original texts. However, Prevost’s contractions in Letters 13 and 15 are likely to provide major problems for most readers, and we have therefore added an appendix in which these contractions have been written out. (shrink)

Summary The correspondence in this issue of History of European Ideas has not previously been published. It is the surviving part of the epistolary exchange between Dugald Stewart and the Genevan professor and man of letters Pierre Prevost (1751?1839) from the 1790s to the 1820s. To this are added several closely connected letters to and from their associates. This correspondence is striking evidence of the republic of letters continuing to flourish in the aftermath of the French Revolution, illustrating the transmission (...) of works, the role of go-betweens, the provision of letters of introduction and the formation of intellectual and personal alliances. Not least, the letters tell us much about the ideas of those involved, and about the formation, development, and relation of these ideas to published works. This is particularly significant for Stewart, most of whose letters and papers are lost. (shrink)

Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments lays the foundation for a general system of morals, and is a text of central importance in the history of moral and political thought. It presents a theory of the imagination which Smith derived from David Hume but which encompasses an idea of sympathy that in some ways is more sophisticated than anything in Hume's philosophy. By means of sympathy and the mental construct of an impartial spectator, Smith formulated highly original theories of conscience, (...) moral judgment and the virtues. The enduring legacy of his work is its reconstruction of the Enlightenment idea of a moral, or social, science encompassing both political economy and the theory of law and government. This 2002 volume offers a new edition of the text with clear and helpful notes for the student reader, together with a substantial introduction that sets the work in its philosophical and historical context. (shrink)

This volume on Hume's politics brings together essays that have been formative of the scholarly and more general debate about Hume's political thought. The articles span a wide range of view-points such as: the possibilities of seeing in Hume both the conservative and the liberal; Hume's sophisticated analysis of party-politics and of commerce and politics; his ideas of the international order and his fundamental theory of justice in relation to law, property and government.

A wide-ranging collection of studies on Enlightenment and religion in eighteenth-century England.

_Essays on the Active Powers of Man_ was Thomas Reid’s last major work. It was conceived as part of one large work, intended as a final synoptic statement of his overall philosophy. The first and larger part was published three years earlier as _Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man_. These two works are united by Reid’s basic philosophy of Common Sense, which sets out native principles by which the mind operates in both its intellectual and active aspects. The _Active (...) Powers_ shows how these principles are involved in volition, action, and the ability to judge morally. Reid gives an original twist to a libertarian and realist tradition that was prominently represented in eighteenth-century British thought by such thinkers as Samuel Clarke and Reid’s near contemporary and acquaintance, Richard Price. Traditionally seen as an epistemologist, Reid has in much recent work emerged as a significant contributor to the philosophy of action and to ethics. This edition of the _Active Powers_ will be of interest not only to historians of philosophy but also to philosophers working on the theory of action, on the problem of free will, and in moral psychology and meta-ethics. (shrink)

The International Library of Critical Essays in the History of Philosophy makes available in a systematic manner essays in the history of philosophy selected and presented by volume editors who are highly respected in their fields.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S OBLIGATIONS Hume's general theory of morals is mainly concerned with explicating moral good and bad, virtue and vice. And so it is not surprising to find that when, at the end of his Section 'Of the origin of justice and property' in the Treatise he turns to the question of the moral quality of justice, the formulation is 'Why we annex the idea of virtue to justice, and (...) of vice to injustice. ' (T498)-1 He does, however, have a theory of obligation as well, which is completely in line with his general theory; although he does not say very much about it, it is both clear and important. Hume opens one of his most important paragraphs on obligation by stating the principle that ought implies can: No action can be requir'd of us as our duty, unless there be implanted in human nature some actuating passion or motive, capable of producing the action. (T518) We can only be under an obligation to do actions, the motives for which are within the range of natural human motivation. He then goes on to spell out what this means for our idea of obligation: This motive cannot be the sense of duty. A sense of duty supposes an antecedent obligation : And- where an action is not requir' d by any natural passion, it cannot be requir ' d by any natural obligation; since it may be omitted without proving any defect or imperfection in the mind and temper, and consequently without any vice.(T518) In other words, we have an obligation to perform an action (1) if the motive for this action is a natural human motive, (this is the principle that ought implies can, and it is a necessary condition for obligation); and (2) if our non-performance of the action is a sign that we are missing a quality in our character (and consequently a motive for the action), which it is a defect or imperfection in the mind and temper to be missing. What Hume means by defect or imperfection is strongly indicated on the previous 8. page: All morality depends upon our sentiments; and when any action, or quality of the mind, pleases us after a certain manner, we say it is virtuous; and when the neglect, or non-performance of it, displeases us after a like manner, we say that we lie under an obligation to perform it. (T517) The imperfection, of which the non-performance of an obligation is a sign, is thus a quality which is subject to a certain kind of displeasure, namely a displeasure which is similar to the pleasure which accompanies our perception of virtue. But now we know from Hume's general exposition of the emotional background to moral evaluation that this latter pleasure arises in conjunction with a peculiar indirect passion, which is closely akin to, and in a way nothing but a corrected version of love, and which we call moral appro2 bation. And this, of course, leads us to expect that the displeasure in question here arises in conjunction with the indirect passion which is akin to hatred and is known as moral disapprobation. That this is what Hume intends is strongly supported by a short treatment of obligation much earlier in the Treatise: When any virtuous motive or principle is common in human nature, a person, who feels his heart devoid of that principle*, may hate himself upon that account, and may perform the action without the motive, from a certain sense of duty,... (T479, my ital.)3 If we put all those pieces together, we can see fairly clearly what Hume's theory of obligation was. Obligation has to be seen against a background of the natural and common qualities of human character and the accompanying motives: if a man either lacks a certain quality, or in a particular situation does not have the common or natural motive, he may yet perform the action which this quality and motive would have led him to do, if he had had it; he may see, if he looks upon the situation as men commonly and naturally do, i.e. as an impartial spectator, that then he... (shrink)

This special issue of History of European Ideas publishes several little known sources for the life and work of John Millar (1735–1801). This material supplements modern editions of his works and the records of his professional formation, his teaching, his life as a professor, his political engagement. The Preface suggests that Millar’s form of Whiggism was an exception to the general despair over the relevance of Enlightenment political ideas that has been persuasively diagnosed in other theorists of British politics towards (...) the end of the eighteenth century. (shrink)

In the 1960s republic and republicanism hardly figured in political theory. Today they are prominent, if highly contested, topics in political thought in the English‐speaking world. While there may be many reasons for this, undoubtedly a particularly important factor was one of the periodic convulsions in the American search for identity. From the late 1960s onwards, American scholars launched a sustained criticism of the assumption that America was founded on the institutionalization of a complex of ideas identified broadly as individualistic (...) liberalism and began a long and fertile search for alternative roots, which were soon identified as republican. This endeavour on the part of American historians was quickly supplemented by a magisterial interpretation of the whole of Anglo‐American political culture in the early modern period as predominantly a development of the civic humanist republicanism hammered out in Renaissance Italy, a topic that was undergoing its own rapid development. The result was a rich historical panorama of the development of republican ideas and practices from the Renaissance to our own time: the Italian cities attempting to avoid princely rule by basing republican government on the virtues of an aristocracy; the Dutch provinces shoring up their independence from Iberian monarchy by developing that new and controversial government, republics based on commercial, not landed, wealth; the English Commonwealth which, though short‐lived, helped to secure the continuing influence of republican ideas and enabled people in the eighteenth century to see Britain's mixed constitution as that apparent paradox, a monarchical republic – and one based on representation; the American Revolution which, by renewing the idea of federation, refuted the traditional republican dogma that a republic could not exist in a large country and, in the process, made republicanism decisively anti‐aristocratic; the French Revolution which transformed so much of republican thought into a still continuing debate about democracy. (shrink)