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Edinburgh Studies in Scottish Philosophy

David Hume and the Aberdeen PhilosophersReid, Campbell, Gerard, Beattie

By Gordon Graham

Format

£19.99

About this book

Rediscovers David Hume’s contemporary critics to systematically investigate the merits of Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Alexander Gerard and James Beattie

  • Re-discovers Hume’s brilliant contemporary critics
  • Explores new answers to the implications of philosophical scepticism
  • Re-conceives empirical science from a teleological perspective

David Hume is the most famous philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet his prominence in the history of philosophy has had the unhappy effect of overshadowing some of the most insightful critics amongst his contemporaries. This book aims to restore the philosophical credentials of a remarkable set of eighteenth-century philosophers based in Aberdeen’s two university colleges. In their own time, Thomas Reid, George Campbell, Alexander Gerard and James Beattie provided compelling counters to the intellectual dominance of Hume’s Edinburgh. Though they are now largely neglected, all four prove to be philosophers of striking critical acumen. Their work can still cast fresh light on Hume’s influential contribution to the enduring philosophical questions of morality, religion, aesthetics and politics.

Reviews

Gordon Graham's David Hume and the Aberdeen Philosophers explores Hume's intellectual exchanges with his Aberdeen critics. This engaging study deepens our understanding of Hume’s reception in his own time, the rich philosophical diversity of the Scottish Enlightenment, and the enduring debates in epistemology, metaphysics, morality, aesthetics, social philosophy, and religion.
This lively and informative book by a leading scholar of the Scottish Enlightenment performs a valuable service to all students of the history of philosophy by inviting us to reassess – or to assess for the first time – the true merits of four of Hume’s most challenging critics.
Gordon Graham recovers the Aberdeen philosophers as serious contemporary challengers to Hume [...] If the Aberdeen philosophers experience a renaissance broader than Reid, this learned and readable book will be thanked.
Table of contents

List of Abbreviations

1. The Aberdeen ‘Wise Club’ and the ‘Ingenious’ Hume
2. Hume and Reid: Moral Philosophy
3. Hume and Campbell: Rhetoric and Miracles
4. Hume and Gerard: Taste and Genius
5. Hume and Beattie: Racism and Common Sense
6. Combining Science with Piety

Bibliography
Index

About the author

Gordon Graham

Gordon Graham is Director of the Edinburgh Sacred Arts Festival. He previously taught philosophy at the University of St Andrews, University of Aberdeen, and Princeton Theological Seminary. The author of twenty books on a wide range of subjects in aesthetics, politics and moral philosophy, he has also published extensively on the Scottish philosophical tradition. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and winner of an Eighteenth Century Scottish Studies Society Lifetime Achievement Award, he was founding editor of the Journal of Scottish Philosophy and general editor of the Oxford History of Scottish Philosophy. His books include Scottish Philosophy after the Enlightenment (Edinburgh University Press, 2022).

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