Gershom Carmichael was a teacher and writer of pivotal importance for the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. He was the first Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, predecessor of Francis Hutcheson, Adam Smith and Thomas Reid. Carmichael introduced the natural law tradition of Grotius, Pufendorf and Locke to the moral philosophy courses he taught at the University of Glasgow (1694–1729). His commentaries on Samuel Pufendorf’s work on the duty of man and citizen (1718 and 1724) made his teaching available to a wider readership in Great Britain and in Europe. He also composed an introduction to logic, Breviuscula Introductio ad Logicam, (1720 and 1722) and a brief system of natural theology, Synopsis Theologiae Naturalis (1729).
In our globalized and multicultural world, the problem of understanding is crucial. It is the concern not only of politicians, sociologists, and psychologists, but also a key subject of linguists, translators, language and culture teachers, and specialists of other fields sensitive to cross-cultural issues. This was once again demonstrated at the international conference Cross-cultural Pragmatics at a Crossroads III, held from 26–28 June 2013 at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.
The repeal of much of the penal code in the final decades of the eighteenth century has often been seen as falling neatly into two phases — an initial series of moderate relief acts between 1774 and 1782 and a more radical and controversial phase in the 1790s, halted by the failure of Fitzwilliam’s attempt at a fundamental restructuring of the Irish system of government in 1795. The cautious and limited relief measures of the earlier phase of legislation possess a beguiling symmetry and simplicity when seen as finished pieces of legislation forming part of a series. The provision of an oath of loyalty designed for catholics in 1774 and the removal of the most restrictive parts of the laws preventing catholics from acquiring landed property in 1778 were complemented by the removal, in 1782, of most of the laws restricting catholic worship, education and the clergy. It is easy to establish a division between the removal of obsolete and almost unenforceable economic and religious restrictions in the first phase of relief and the much wider issues involved in challenging the exclusion of catholics from the legal profession, the army, the university, corporations, the franchise and parliament. Yet it would be a mistake to see the first phase of catholic relief as in any way inevitable in the period 1774–82. It is often argued — with considerable justice — that the Irish government’s conversion to catholic relief in the late 1770s was a direct result of decisions taken in Great Britain to reward and encourage the loyalty of English catholics at a time of crisis. An examination of the domestic politics surrounding the relief acts passed between 1774 and 1782 modifies this view considerably. Although the Irish government was decisively influenced by policies formed in London during the first phase of relief legislation, this was not true of the Irish parliament. Irish perspectives on the place of catholics in the state and on the extent of relief were very different from the British government’s viewpoint. This disparity had a considerable effect on the shape of the legislation which finally emerged, and even more on the proposals drawn up by Irish members of parliament actively involved in drafting the legislation affecting catholics.
Searching for Understanding in Cross-Cultural Communication