- The Scottish Philosophical
Tradition:
Empirical, Phenomenological, Intuitionist
90:2 April 2007
Deadline for Submissions: April 30, 2006
Advisory Editor: John Haldane (University of St Andrews) jjh1@st-andrews.ac.uk
In his study of *The Scottish Philosophy - From Hutcheson to Hume* (1875)
James McCosh identifies three characteristics of the Scottish School: "It
proceeds on the method of observation, professedly and really ... It employs
self-consciousness as the instrument of observation ... By the observations
of consciousness, principles are reached which are prior to and independent
of experience". Whether this adequately characterizes a tradition that reaches
from the middle ages (Scotus, Lawrence of Lindores, John Mair) through to
the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Sir William Hamilton, James Ferrier,
Edward Caird) and includes the likes of Hume, Smith and Reid along the way,
is itself a matter deserving of discussion. There is no doubt, however,
that others, including Hegel, Brentano, and Victor Cousin, have likewise
felt that there were distinctive aspects of Scottish philosophy, whether
an inclination to realism, a sympathy for common sense, or a resistance
to ungrounded abstraction. This issue of the Monist is devoted to the ideas
and doctrines advanced by Scots philosophers in the fields of metaphysics,
philosophy of mind, epistemology and moral philosophy. Essays are invited
which explore aspects of Scottish philosophy as these might be described
as being empirical, phenomenological and/or intuitionist. The last category
might be understood, for example, in terms of the sentimentalist tradition
contributed to in different ways by Hutcheson, Smith and Hume; or in terms
of the realist idea, associated with Reid and others, that there are necessities
antecedent to thought which we encounter in experience and reflection: either
extra-mental structures or laws of thought. Contributors will include James
van Cleve, Gordon Graham, and Daniel Robinson.
