The philosophy curriculum at Scottish universities in the eighteenth century

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter (peer-reviewed)peer-review

Abstract / Description of output

An analysis of the transformation of philosophy as a university discipline in the period from c. 1690 to c. 1830.

This chapter examines the changes in the main parts of the university curriculum in philosophy—logic, rhetoric, metaphysics, pneumatics, natural philosophy, and ethics—in the period from c.1690 to c.1830. Underlying developments in these various philosophical subdisciplines was a rejection of ‘speculative philosophy’ in favour of a ‘culture of the mind’. ‘Speculative philosophy’ had, on the whole, been a value-free term at the beginning of the century, when it was part of a division of philosophy into ‘speculative’ and ‘practical’ branches. But from the first decades of the eighteenth century, ‘speculation’ was increasingly associated with the corruption of philosophy by the abstruse and futile intellectual quarrels of so-called ‘scholastics’. By the end of the century, the former distinction between ‘speculative’ and ‘practical’ branches of philosophy had been replaced by an alternative division of philosophy into the study of mind and the study of matter.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationScottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Volume II
Subtitle of host publicationMethod, Metaphysics, Mind, Language
EditorsAaron Garrett, James A. Harris
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter1
Pages1-52
ISBN (Print)9780198807940
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 20 Jul 2023

Publication series

NameA History of Scottish Philosophy
PublisherOxford University Press
Volume2

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

  • philosophy curriculum
  • logic
  • rhetoric
  • metaphysics
  • pneumatics
  • natural philosophy
  • moral philosophy
  • culture of the mind
  • anti-scholasticism

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