Adam Ferguson's Pedagogy and his Engagement with Stoicism

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine Nicolai
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Lecture Notes ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Pedagogical Function ◽  
The University ◽  
Stoic Philosophy

Adam Ferguson, lecturer of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh (1764–1785), was one of the leading figures of the Scottish Enlightenment. His published works, however, have sometimes been dismissed as derivative and viewed as less important than some of his contemporaries, because of his reliance on ancient Stoic philosophy. An analysis of Ferguson's lecture notes, conversely, demonstrates Stoicism's pedagogical function. Rather than adopting Stoic principles, Ferguson used their terminology to teach philosophical concepts. Ferguson's nuanced discussion of ancient philosophy in his lectures demonstrated his critiques of the ancient schools and his purpose for employing their language throughout his texts.

Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Commercial Society ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Speaking World ◽  
The University

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

scholarly journals 1. Biographical Notice of J. S. Mill

1875 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 259-273
Author(s):  
Fraser
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Human Mind ◽  
John Stuart Mill ◽  
Honorary Member ◽  
British India ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Small Farmer ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
The Church

John Stuart Mill was born in London on the 20th of May 1806, and died at Avignon on the 8th of May 1873. He was of Scotch descent. He was connected with Edinburgh not only as having been an honorary member of this Society, but because his father, James Mill, the historian of British India, and author of the “Analysis of the Human Mind,” received his academical education here. His grandfather was a small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in the county of Angus, of whom I find nothing more recorded. The father, by his extraordinary intellectual promise when a boy, drew the attention of Sir John Stuart, then member for Kincardineshire, by whom he was sent to the University of Edinburgh, at the expense of a fund, established by Lady Jane Stuart and some other ladies, for educating young men for the Church of Scotland. Towards the end of last century, James Mill attended the classes in Arts and Divinity. He was a pupil of Dalziel, the Professor of Greek, whose prelections he attended, I believe, for three sessions, and his philosophical powers were called forth by Dugald Stewart's lectures in Moral Philosophy.

Carmichael, Gershom (1672–1729)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Moore ◽  
Michael Silverthorne
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Natural Law ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
Francis Hutcheson ◽  
The University

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).

Adam Smith: Moral and Political Philosophy

Philosophy ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Craig Smith
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Moral Psychology ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Technical Details ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The University ◽  
The 19Th Century

Adam Smith (1723–1790) has become known as the father of economics. His reputation as the author of the Wealth of Nations has eclipsed his contributions to other areas of philosophy. Smith was Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. His Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) was well-regarded at the time but faded from the philosophical canon in the 19th century and has only recently been subject to a revival of interest among philosophers. Smith’s thought was dismissed as moral psychology or as proto-utilitarian political economy until a revival in interest stemming largely from the publication of a critical edition of his works in the 1970s. Recent years have seen a renaissance in interest in Smith among moral philosophers. This has been accompanied by the first serious analysis of Smith’s thinking on rhetoric and the philosophy of science. This bibliography focuses on Smith’s moral and political philosophy. There is a very large literature on the technical details his economic theory and his contribution to the history of that discipline, but that will be mentioned here only when illuminating for discussions of his moral and political thinking.

scholarly journals SCOTTISH MEDICAL ETHNOGRAPHY: COLONIAL TRAVEL, STADIAL THEORY AND THE NATURAL HISTORY OF RACE, c.1770–1805

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 919-949
Author(s):  
BRUCE BUCHAN
Keyword(s):  
Human Populations ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
James Cook ◽  
Historical Progress ◽  
The Pacific ◽  
History Of ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University ◽  
Medical Ethnography ◽  
History Of Race

AbstractThis paper will present a comparative analysis of the ethnographic writings of three colonial travellers trained in medicine at the University of Edinburgh: William Anderson (1750–78), Archibald Menzies (1754–1842) and Robert Brown (1773–1858). Each travelled widely beyond Scotland, enabling them to make a series of observations of non-European peoples in a wide variety of colonial contexts. William Anderson, Archibald Menzies and Robert Brown in particular travelled extensively in the Pacific with (respectively) James Cook on his second and third voyages (1771–8), with George Vancouver (1791–5) and with Matthew Flinders (1801–3). Together, their surviving writings from these momentous expeditions illustrate a growing interest in natural-historical explanations for diversity among human populations. Race emerged as a key concept in this quest, but it remained entangled with assumptions about the stadial historical progress or “civilization” of humanity. A comparative examination of their ethnographic writings thus presents a unique opportunity to study the complex interplay between concepts of race, savagery and civilization in the varied colonial contexts of the Scottish Enlightenment.

The First Edinburgh Chair in Law: Grotius and the Scottish Enlightenment

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W Cairns
Keyword(s):  
Natural Law ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Public Law ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Intellectual Content ◽  
Hugo Grotius ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The Law ◽  
The University ◽  
Law Professors

This chapter examines the development of teaching from the chair of Public Law and the Law of Nature and Nations at the University of Edinburgh during the Scottish Enlightenment, with particular emphasis on the intellectual content of the classes and the politics of professorial appointments. For the first half-century, law teaching from the chair was intermittent. However, this does not mean that the holder was incapable or unlearned. When the holder of the chair did teach, the class was based on Hugo Grotius' De iure belli ac pacis libri tres. The chapter first provides an overview of legal education in Scottish universities before profiling the law professors who were appointed to the new chair between 1707 and 1831, including Charles Areskine, William Kirkpatrick, George Abercromby, Robert Bruce, James Balfour, Allan Maconochie, and Robert Hamilton. Robert Bruce was the last holder of the chair to teach Grotius' natural law.

scholarly journals XLII.—Biographical Sketch of Adam Ferguson, LL.D., F.R.S.E., Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh

1864 ◽  
Vol 23 (3) ◽  
pp. 599-665 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Small
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Biographical Sketch ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
The University

The Memoir now submitted to the Society, while it details the chief events in the life of a man who occupied a distinguished place in the literature of Scotland, at a period when it had attained a high reputation, cannot claim to be so complete as might be desired. His life was prolonged for several years after nearly all of his early friends had passed away; and since his death many papers have been destroyed or have fallen aside, which would now be of the greatest interest.Whilst in this way much has been lost that might have given greater completeness to these pages, still, the recent publication of the Diary of his friend Dr Carlyle of Inveresk, has furnished many additional details, and afforded further evidence of the estimation in which he was held by his literary associates.Several letters selected from the lives of his distinguished friends, and from the Manuscript Collection of the University, in addition to information derived from the short notices of his life already printed, have afforded the materials for preparing this sketch of one, whose career was more varied, while his public labours and literary connections were not less important and extensive, than those of any of his contemporaries.

scholarly journals Blackstone's Science of Legislation

1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The North ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Law And Legislation ◽  
The University

In 1795, Dugald Stewart, the professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and reigning Athenian of the North, observed in a famous estimate of the career of Adam Smith that “the most celebrated works produced in the different countries of Europe during the last thirty years” had “aimed at the improvement of society” by “enlightening the policy of actual legislators.” Among such celebrated productions Stewart included the publications of François Quesnay, Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, Pedro Campomanes, and Cesare Beccaria and, above all, the writings of Smith himself, whose Wealth of Nations “unquestionably” represented “the most comprehensive and perfect work that has yet appeared on the general principles of any branch of legislation.” One of the more striking achievements of recent scholarship on eighteenth-century social thought has been to make sense of this description of Smith's Inquiry and to enable us better to appreciate why Smith chose to describe his system of political economy as a contribution to the “science of a legislator.” In a cultural setting in which, as J. G. A. Pocock has put it, “jurisprudence” was “the social science of the eighteenth century,” law and legislation further featured, in J. H. Burns's formula, as “the great applied science among the sciences of man.” Moralists and jurists of the period, echoing earlier political conventions, may readily have acknowledged with Rousseau that “it would take gods to give men laws.” Nevertheless, even in Rousseau's program for perfecting “the conditions of civil association”—“men being taken as they are and laws as they might be”—a mortal “legislator” appeared plainly “necessary.”

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