# 058 - Modern Philosophy Chapter 67 The Scottish School

An episode of [History of Philosophy](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1877164155), 7 Mar 2026, 22 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/69897679/058_modern_philosophy_chapter_67_the_scottish_school.mp3

Dive into the captivating journey of philosophical thought through the ages with History of Philosophy. This podcast unravels the rich tapestry of philosophical opinions, systems, and schools of thought, exploring the lives of influential philosophers and the intricate connections between different schools of philosophy. Discover the origins of Ancient Philosophy across cultures like Babylon, China, India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, as well as the profound insights of the Christian Era, featuring thinkers such as St. Anselm, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ockham. Journey into Modern Philosophy with giants like Descartes, Spinoza, Kant, and Hegel, all guided by the insightful narration of Beth Thomas. This episode includes AI-generated content.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Chapter sixty seven of History of Philosophy. This is a
[0:06] Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
[0:10] Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
[0:15] Speaker 1: History of Philosophy by William Turner, chapter sixty seven. The
[0:21] Speaker 1: Scottish School. While German philosophers, inspired by the idea of
[0:28] Speaker 1: counteracting the skepticism of Hume, were evolving systems of transcendental
[0:32] Speaker 1: philosophy from the principles laid down by Cant, there was
[0:37] Speaker 1: developing in Hume's own country a school of philosophy which,
[0:41] Speaker 1: although it made common cause with Transcendentalism against skepticism, reached
[0:46] Speaker 1: conclusions very different from those of the Transcendentalists. Indeed, in
[0:52] Speaker 1: the first stages of its development, the Scottish School was
[0:56] Speaker 1: as much opposed to Transcendentalism as it was to skepticism,
[1:01] Speaker 1: for the doctrine of common sense is not merely an
[1:04] Speaker 1: affirmation of dogmatism, but also a protest against absolute idealism. McCosh,
[1:12] Speaker 1: whose work on the Scottish Philosophy is a standard authority,
[1:17] Speaker 1: regards Read as the first fit representative of the Scottish School.
[1:23] Speaker 1: Although Sir William Hamilton traces the history of the school
[1:26] Speaker 1: back to Carmichael and Hutchison. Read life. Thomas Reid seventeen
[1:34] Speaker 1: ten to seventeen ninety six, who succeeded Adam Smith as
[1:37] Speaker 1: Professor of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, is the
[1:40] Speaker 1: author of An Inquiry into the Human Mind, on the
[1:43] Speaker 1: Principles of Common Sense seventeen sixty four, Essays on the
[1:47] Speaker 1: Intellectual Powers of Man seventeen eighty five, and Essays on
[1:52] Speaker 1: the Active Powers of Man seventeen eighty eight. The addition
[1:56] Speaker 1: of Reed's works begun by Hamilton in eighteen twenty seven,
[2:00] Speaker 1: completed after the latter's death. The seventh edition appeared in
[2:04] Speaker 1: eighteen seventy two Doctrines. There are in Reed's philosophy two
[2:10] Speaker 1: points of doctrine which deserve special attention, his theory of
[2:15] Speaker 1: perception and his doctrine of common sense. Theory of perception,
[2:22] Speaker 1: Reed rightly traced the immaterialism of Berkeley and the skepticism
[2:26] Speaker 1: of Hume to the Cartesian doctrine that what we directly
[2:30] Speaker 1: and immediately perceive is not the external object but a
[2:35] Speaker 1: subjective modification which is an image of the object, a
[2:39] Speaker 1: doctrine which he falsely attributes to the schoolmen. In opposition
[2:44] Speaker 1: to this representative theory of perception, Reed maintains the presentative
[2:49] Speaker 1: theory that our knowledge of external things is immediate startled. However,
[2:56] Speaker 1: by his own boldness, as Hamilton observes, he proceeds to
[3:00] Speaker 1: deliver the whole case into the hands of his opponents
[3:03] Speaker 1: by declaring that the perception of external objects is to
[3:07] Speaker 1: be exempted from the region of consciousness, so that while
[3:11] Speaker 1: he holds that we have an immediate perception of external objects,
[3:15] Speaker 1: he does not admit that we are conscious of such perception.
[3:21] Speaker 1: Doctrine of common sense philosophy, read teaches, has no other
[3:27] Speaker 1: route but the principles of common sense. It grows out
[3:31] Speaker 1: of them and draws its nourishment from them. Severed from
[3:36] Speaker 1: this route, its honors wither, its sap is dried up,
[3:40] Speaker 1: it dies and rots. Zeno the eliatic, Piro the skeptic,
[3:47] Speaker 1: Berkeley the immaterialist, and Hume the phenomenalist overlooked this truth.
[3:54] Speaker 1: Hobbs and Dickardes, who were equally neglectful of the claims
[3:58] Speaker 1: of common sense, are accountable for the present and prosperous
[4:02] Speaker 1: state of philosophy. The principle on which reads philosophy is
[4:07] Speaker 1: grounded is the following start quote. All knowledge and all
[4:11] Speaker 1: science must be built upon principles that are self evident,
[4:14] Speaker 1: and of such principles, every man who has common sense
[4:17] Speaker 1: is a competent judge end quote. Self evident truths, such
[4:22] Speaker 1: as the axiom of causality are to be exempted from
[4:25] Speaker 1: critical inquiry. They are primary data of intellectual thought. In
[4:32] Speaker 1: developing this fundamental principle, Reid takes advantage of the twofold
[4:36] Speaker 1: meaning of the term common sense, namely, one, the combination
[4:42] Speaker 1: of qualities constituting good sense or the faculty of sound
[4:45] Speaker 1: judgment two the aggregate of original principles planted in the
[4:50] Speaker 1: minds of all men. Hamilton has shown that, if we
[4:54] Speaker 1: take the latter meaning of the term, Reed's argument is
[4:57] Speaker 1: a valid and legitimate refutation of skepticism historical position. Not
[5:05] Speaker 1: even the most enthusiastic of Reed's admirers claimed for him
[5:09] Speaker 1: the title of great philosopher. He has not, writes Macosh,
[5:15] Speaker 1: the mathematical consecutiveness of Descartes, the speculative genius of Leibniz,
[5:20] Speaker 1: the sagacity of Locke, the spirituale of Berkeley, or the
[5:24] Speaker 1: detective skill of Hume. Reed himself was of opinion that
[5:30] Speaker 1: it is genius and not the want of it, that
[5:32] Speaker 1: adulterates philosophy. The greatest benefit that Reid conferred on philosophy
[5:38] Speaker 1: was the importance which he attached and succeeded in causing
[5:42] Speaker 1: others to attach to introspection or self observation. James Oswald
[5:49] Speaker 1: seventeen twenty seven to seventeen ninety three and James Beatty
[5:53] Speaker 1: seventeen thirty five to eighteen oh three popularized and applied
[5:57] Speaker 1: to theological controversy. The principles of the philosophy of common
[6:01] Speaker 1: sense mention must also be made of a contemporary of Reed,
[6:06] Speaker 1: the eccentric author of Ancient Metaphysics or the Science of
[6:10] Speaker 1: Universals Edinburgh seventeen seventy nine to seventeen ninety nine, namely
[6:15] Speaker 1: James Burnett, Lord Monbordeaux seventeen fourteen to seventeen ninety nine.
[6:22] Speaker 1: The philosophy of the Scottish School was developed by Stuart
[6:25] Speaker 1: Brown and Macintosh, before reaching its final phase as represented
[6:30] Speaker 1: in the Philosophy of Hamilton Dugald Stuart Life. Dugald Stewart
[6:40] Speaker 1: seventeen fifty three to eighteen twenty eight was the most
[6:43] Speaker 1: eminent of the followers of Reed. His principal work is
[6:47] Speaker 1: entitled Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. His
[6:51] Speaker 1: collected works were published in ten volumes by Hamilton Edinburgh
[6:55] Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four to eighteen fifty eight Doctrines. Stewart accepts
[7:02] Speaker 1: reads analysis of perception, while vindicating Read's empirical method of
[7:06] Speaker 1: self observation. He attached greater importance than Reid had done
[7:11] Speaker 1: to the association of ideas. He protested, however, with the
[7:16] Speaker 1: utmost vigor against the materialism of the first associationists Hartley
[7:20] Speaker 1: Priestly and Erasmus Darwin. Thomas Brown life Thomas Brown seventeen
[7:29] Speaker 1: seventy eight to eighteen twenty. After studying law and medicine
[7:32] Speaker 1: at the University of Edinburgh, was appointed in eighteen ten
[7:36] Speaker 1: Associate professor with Dugald Stewart. His chief works are An
[7:41] Speaker 1: Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect eighteen o
[7:44] Speaker 1: four and Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind
[7:48] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty doctrines. Brown retains the fundamental doctrine of the
[7:54] Speaker 1: Scottish school, namely the existence of indemonstrable first principles. He is, however,
[8:02] Speaker 1: more inclined than were his predecessors to restrict the number
[8:06] Speaker 1: of these principles and to give larger scope to association
[8:10] Speaker 1: in accounting for the origin of our universal and necessary beliefs.
[8:15] Speaker 1: In his analysis of the processes of sensation, he attaches
[8:20] Speaker 1: great importance to the muscular sense with regard to causation.
[8:25] Speaker 1: He teaches that while the relation of cause and effect
[8:28] Speaker 1: is merely one of invariable succession, our judgment concerning that
[8:32] Speaker 1: relation is not the result of association or custom, but
[8:36] Speaker 1: a primitive or intuitive belief. Macintosh life Sir James Macintosh
[8:44] Speaker 1: seventeen sixty five to eighteen thirty two was no less
[8:48] Speaker 1: distinguished as a statesman, historian, essayist, and critic than as
[8:52] Speaker 1: a philosopher. His principal philosophical works are a dissertation on
[8:57] Speaker 1: the Progress of Ethical Philosophy, contribute in eighteen thirty to
[9:01] Speaker 1: the Encyclopedia Britannica, and a Discourse on the Law of
[9:05] Speaker 1: Nature and Nations seventeen ninety nine. Doctrines Macintosh, while adhering
[9:12] Speaker 1: to the original speculative principle of the Scottish school, even
[9:16] Speaker 1: going so far as to accuse Brown of openly revolting
[9:19] Speaker 1: against the authority of Red departed from the ethical tradition
[9:23] Speaker 1: of the followers of Hutcheson to the extent of admitting
[9:26] Speaker 1: that benevolence is the universal characteristic of human virtue. But
[9:32] Speaker 1: although he betrays here the influence of the utilitarians, he
[9:37] Speaker 1: does not maintain that the happiness of others is the
[9:40] Speaker 1: universal criterion of moral conduct. He is inclined rather to
[9:45] Speaker 1: side with the intuitionists and to insist on the supremacy
[9:49] Speaker 1: of the immediate judgment of conscience. The next representative of
[9:54] Speaker 1: the Scottish School is Sir William Hamilton, who, under the
[9:59] Speaker 1: influence of ca in principles, developed the philosophy of his
[10:02] Speaker 1: predecessors Read and Stuart into a more comprehensive system. It was, however,
[10:09] Speaker 1: inevitable that the introduction of foreign elements of speculative criticism
[10:14] Speaker 1: should react on the dogmatism of the founders of the
[10:17] Speaker 1: school and lead to a partial skepticism, which, in the
[10:21] Speaker 1: nineteenth century proved a no less formidable photo theism in
[10:25] Speaker 1: religion and to absolutism in philosophy than was Hume's skepticism
[10:30] Speaker 1: in the eighteenth Sir William Hamilton life Sir William Hamilton
[10:37] Speaker 1: was born at Glasgow in seventeen eighty eight. After completing
[10:41] Speaker 1: his studies in the Department of Arts in the University
[10:44] Speaker 1: of his native city, he took up the study of
[10:46] Speaker 1: medicine at Edinburgh. In eighteen o seven he went to Oxford.
[10:53] Speaker 1: After leaving Oxford he began the study of law, and
[10:56] Speaker 1: in eighteen thirteen was admitted to the Scottish bar. In
[10:59] Speaker 1: eighteen twenty one he was appointed to the Chair of
[11:02] Speaker 1: Civil History in the University of Edinburgh. In eighteen thirty
[11:06] Speaker 1: six he was appointed to the Chair of Logic and Metaphysics,
[11:09] Speaker 1: which he held until his death in eighteen fifty six.
[11:13] Speaker 1: Sources besides the Discussions on Philosophy, Literature and Education eighteen
[11:18] Speaker 1: fifty two, The Lectures on Metaphysics second edition eighteen sixty six,
[11:23] Speaker 1: The Lectures on Logic, second edition eighteen sixty six, and
[11:26] Speaker 1: many important articles in the Edinburgh Review. From eighteen twenty
[11:30] Speaker 1: nine to eighteen thirty nine, Hamilton contributed to English philosophical literature.
[11:35] Speaker 1: His valuable editions of Red's and Stuart's works consult J. S.
[11:41] Speaker 1: Mills Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, London, eighteen sixty five,
[11:46] Speaker 1: fifth edition, eighteen seventy eight. White's Philosophy of Sir William Hamilton,
[11:51] Speaker 1: New York, eighteen fifty four. Bowen's Metaphysics off Sir W. Hamilton, Cambridge, Massachusetts,
[11:56] Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven, and Veaches Hamilton, Blackwoods Philosophical Classics, Edinburgh
[12:02] Speaker 1: and Philadelphia, eighteen eighty two Doctrines General View of Philosophy.
[12:09] Speaker 1: Hamilton defines philosophy as the knowledge of effects in their causes,
[12:14] Speaker 1: a definition which, as Hamilton himself observes, implies that all
[12:19] Speaker 1: the sciences are to be viewed as so many branches
[12:22] Speaker 1: of philosophy. Philosophy, however, differs from the other sciences in
[12:28] Speaker 1: having for its primary problem to investigate and determine the
[12:32] Speaker 1: conditions of knowledge. Consequently, it makes mind its first and
[12:37] Speaker 1: paramount object of consideration. In logic, ethics, politics, the philosophy
[12:44] Speaker 1: of the fine arts, and natural theology, the mind is
[12:48] Speaker 1: studied in certain special applications, while in metaphysics the mind
[12:53] Speaker 1: is studied in itself. Now metaphysics or psychology for the
[12:59] Speaker 1: terms are synony has a threefold task. One the observation
[13:05] Speaker 1: of facts and phenomena of the mind. Phenomenology of mind
[13:10] Speaker 1: two the study of the laws which regulate these facts
[13:14] Speaker 1: normalogy of the mind, and three the study of the
[13:19] Speaker 1: real results which we are warranted in inferring from these
[13:22] Speaker 1: phenomena ontology or metaphysics, properly so called logic. Hamilton's most
[13:30] Speaker 1: important contribution to logic is his theory of the quantification
[13:34] Speaker 1: of the predicate. This theory is braced on the postulate
[13:38] Speaker 1: that start quote, we be allowed to state explicitly in
[13:42] Speaker 1: language all that is implicitly contained in thought quote, and
[13:47] Speaker 1: on the alleged fact that in thought we quantify the
[13:50] Speaker 1: predicate as well as the subject of a judgment. The
[13:54] Speaker 1: innovation would necessitate a complete change in the system of
[13:57] Speaker 1: logical notation, and was destined so at least. Its author
[14:01] Speaker 1: claimed to reform the entire science, to reduce propositions to equations,
[14:07] Speaker 1: to simplify the doctrine of conversion, and to abolish the
[14:10] Speaker 1: figured syllogism psychology. Hamilton devised the phenomena of the mind
[14:17] Speaker 1: into cognitions, feelings, and cognitive phenomena volitions and desires. The
[14:24] Speaker 1: cognitive states are subdivided according as they are referred to
[14:28] Speaker 1: one or other of the cognitive faculties, namely the presentative,
[14:34] Speaker 1: the conservative, the reproductive, the representative, the elaborative, and the regulative.
[14:42] Speaker 1: The presentative faculty includes external and internal perception, the former
[14:48] Speaker 1: being synonymous with consciousness of states of the not self,
[14:51] Speaker 1: and the latter with self consciousness or consciousness of states
[14:54] Speaker 1: of self. For whether it is question of external or
[14:59] Speaker 1: of internal perception, all that we perceive is the phenomenon,
[15:03] Speaker 1: so that our knowledge of matter, as well as our
[15:06] Speaker 1: knowledge of mind is confined to phenomenal states. Our whole
[15:11] Speaker 1: knowledge of mind and matter, Hamilton writes, is thus only
[15:16] Speaker 1: relative of existence, absolutely and in itself. We know nothing.
[15:23] Speaker 1: In this sense, Hamilton is a relativist. A relativist, however,
[15:28] Speaker 1: of a class altogether different from that to which are
[15:31] Speaker 1: assigned those who, like Protagoras, held that man is the
[15:35] Speaker 1: measure of all things. The qualities of external reality as
[15:40] Speaker 1: perceived by us are reduced to three classes primary, Secundo, primary,
[15:47] Speaker 1: and secondary. According as the knowledge element or the feeling
[15:50] Speaker 1: element predominates in the perception of these qualities, we have
[15:56] Speaker 1: an immediate or presentative, not immediate or representative knowledge. Hamilton
[16:03] Speaker 1: is therefore an advocate of natural realism, of which he says,
[16:07] Speaker 1: Read is the first champion In modern times, the conservative
[16:12] Speaker 1: and reproductive faculties include the retentive and resuscitative functions of memory.
[16:18] Speaker 1: The resuscitative faculty is governed by the laws of association,
[16:22] Speaker 1: to which Hamilton devoted special attention. The representative faculty or imagination,
[16:29] Speaker 1: is defined as the power of representing inconsciousness and of
[16:32] Speaker 1: keeping before the mind the knowledge presented, retained, and reproduced.
[16:38] Speaker 1: The elaborative faculty is the faculty of comparison. It includes generalization,
[16:44] Speaker 1: simple apprehension, judgment, and reasoning. The regulative faculty is what
[16:51] Speaker 1: the ancients called intellect and what Read and Stewart designated
[16:55] Speaker 1: as common sense. The phenomena with which it is concerned
[16:58] Speaker 1: are not data of exprest experience, but rather that native
[17:02] Speaker 1: cognitions of the mind, which are the conditions of all experience.
[17:08] Speaker 1: Passing over the normalogy of the mind, we next come
[17:11] Speaker 1: to the questions of ontology, that is, to the inferences
[17:14] Speaker 1: drawn from the study of the mind ontology. Since we
[17:21] Speaker 1: know only the relations of things, since relativity in this
[17:25] Speaker 1: sense is a quality of all human knowledge, it follows
[17:28] Speaker 1: that we cannot know the unconditioned start quote. Conditional limitation
[17:34] Speaker 1: is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. To
[17:38] Speaker 1: know is to condition The unconditioned, however, is not in
[17:43] Speaker 1: itself a contradiction. Its inconceivableness does not preclude the possibility
[17:49] Speaker 1: of its existence. It is inconceivable as a concept, and
[17:54] Speaker 1: its existence is unknowable so far as reason, intuition, and
[17:57] Speaker 1: experience go. Hamilton, however, admitting that our faculties are weak
[18:02] Speaker 1: not deceitful, holds that a supernatural revelation of the absolute
[18:06] Speaker 1: supplements our ordinary knowledge of it. With regard to self
[18:11] Speaker 1: and not self, Hamilton, while holding that the doctrine of
[18:16] Speaker 1: relativity applies to these objects of knowledge, that self and
[18:19] Speaker 1: not self are per se unknowable as to their substance,
[18:22] Speaker 1: concedes that our mental experience reveals self as a unity
[18:26] Speaker 1: amidst successive changes, and that our experience of the external
[18:30] Speaker 1: world warrants us in representing it as a reality which
[18:34] Speaker 1: is permanent as to the quantum of existence, although the
[18:38] Speaker 1: forms of existence are constantly changing. It is scarcely necessary
[18:44] Speaker 1: to point out here the ambiguity of the term relativity
[18:48] Speaker 1: as applied to human knowledge. Between the propositions. We know
[18:53] Speaker 1: only the relations of things, and we know the related
[18:57] Speaker 1: thing only in so far as it is related to us,
[19:01] Speaker 1: there is a vast difference, a difference to which the
[19:04] Speaker 1: difference between agnosticism and theism is ultimately reduced. Hamilton explains
[19:10] Speaker 1: the universal belief in causation by the inability of the
[19:14] Speaker 1: human mind to think anything except under the conditions of
[19:16] Speaker 1: space and time. Historical position Hamilton brought to bear on
[19:23] Speaker 1: the study of philosophy, an erudition less common that it
[19:27] Speaker 1: ought to have been among British philosophers in the early
[19:29] Speaker 1: part of the nineteenth century. It was by encouraging historical
[19:34] Speaker 1: research in connection with the study of philosophy, and by
[19:38] Speaker 1: fostering a spirit of scholarship, rather than by stimulating constructive effort,
[19:43] Speaker 1: that his influence as a writer and teacher was most
[19:45] Speaker 1: widely felt. Exception must, however, be made in favor of
[19:50] Speaker 1: his doctrine of relativity, which may be said to be
[19:53] Speaker 1: the philosophical basis of modern agnosticism, although it is quite
[19:58] Speaker 1: certain that Hamilton never, in ten ended that his criticism
[20:01] Speaker 1: of rational knowledge should become a criticism of belief. Henry
[20:07] Speaker 1: Longville Mansell eighteen twenty two eighteen seventy one was the
[20:11] Speaker 1: first to apply the doctrine of relativity to the defense
[20:13] Speaker 1: of religion. In the Limits of Religious Thought Bampton Lecture
[20:18] Speaker 1: eighteen fifty eight and The Philosophy of the Conditioned eighteen
[20:22] Speaker 1: sixty six, he endeavors to refute rationalism by showing, in
[20:26] Speaker 1: conformity with Hamilton's principles that the only knowledge of the
[20:30] Speaker 1: unconditioned which the human mind can acquire is negative, and
[20:35] Speaker 1: that in matters of religious belief, a scientific system is impossible.
[20:40] Speaker 1: He insists that the difficulty of believing arises not from revelation,
[20:45] Speaker 1: but from the inability of reason to form a positive
[20:48] Speaker 1: concept of God, and concludes that reason must be corrected
[20:53] Speaker 1: and supplemented by faith. Footnote start quote of the nature
[21:00] Speaker 1: and attributes of God in his infinite being, philosophy can
[21:03] Speaker 1: tell us nothing of man's inability to apprehend that nature,
[21:08] Speaker 1: and why he is thus unable. She tells us all
[21:11] Speaker 1: that we can know and all that we need know.
[21:14] Speaker 1: Limits of Religious Thought, page one hundred and eighty five
[21:17] Speaker 1: and footnote. The constructive aspect of man cell system was, however, neglected.
[21:25] Speaker 1: Its destructive aspect was promptly seize upon and converted into
[21:28] Speaker 1: a justification of agnosticism. James Frederick Ferrier eighteen o eight
[21:34] Speaker 1: to eighteen sixty four, author of the Institutes of Metaphysic
[21:37] Speaker 1: eighteen fifty four, is sometimes reckoned among the members of
[21:41] Speaker 1: the Scottish School. His attitude was, however, one of antagonism
[21:46] Speaker 1: to the doctrines of that school, and especially to the
[21:49] Speaker 1: identification of metaphysics with psychology, which was, as we have seen,
[21:54] Speaker 1: a tenant common to all the Scottish philosophers. He divided
[21:58] Speaker 1: philosophy into epistemology, the theory of knowledge, agnoology the theory
[22:05] Speaker 1: of ignorance, and ontology the theory of being. End of
[22:11] Speaker 1: chapter sixty seven, recording by Kate McKenzie

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.