This paper investigates the little-known reception of Thomas Hobbes, Henry More, Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, and John Locke in the Scottish universities in the period 1660–1700. The fortune of the English philosophers in the Scottish universities rested on whether their philosophies were consonant with the Scots’ own philosophical agenda. Within the established Cartesian curriculum, the Scottish regents eagerly taught what they thought best in English philosophy and criticised what they thought wrong. The paper also suggests new sources and (...) perspectives for the broader discussion of the ‘origins’ of the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

In 1685, during the heyday of Scottish Cartesianism, regent Robert Lidderdale from Edinburgh University declared Cartesianism the best philosophy in support of the Reformed faith. It is commonplace that Descartes was ostracised by the Reformed, and his role in pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy is not yet fully acknowledged. This paper offers an introduction to Scottish Cartesianism, and argues that the philosophers of the Scottish universities warmed up to Cartesianism because they saw it as a newer, better version of their own traditional (...) Reformed scholasticism, chiefly in metaphysics and natural philosophy. (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with their (...) theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

This article is an introduction to a special issue on ‘Contexts of Religious Tolerance: New Perspectives from Early Modern Britain and Beyond’, which contains essays on the contributions to the debates on tolerance by non-canonical philosophers and theologians, mainly from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scotland and England. Among the studied authors are the Aberdeen Doctors, Samuel Rutherford, James Dundas, John Finch, George Keith, John Simson, Archibald Campbell, Francis Hutcheson, George Turnbull and John Witherspoon. The introduction draws attention to several methodological points (...) connected to the decision to look at the debates on tolerance through the prism of rarely studied authors. It then presents the essays, which offer novel perspectives by analysing and contextualising political, religious and moral treatments of tolerance. These are tied especially to debates on the articles of faith and on their status, on confessions of faith and their role in the quest for orthodoxy, on liberty of conscience, and on the relation between church and state. (shrink)

In the second half of the seventeenth century, philosophy teaching in the Scottish universities gradually moved from scholasticism to Cartesianism. Robert Forbes, regent at Marischal College and King's College, Aberdeen, was a strenuous opponent of Descartes. The analysis of the philosophy of Forbes and of his teacher Patrick Gordon sheds light on the relationship between Scottish Reformed scholasticism and the reception of Descartes in Scotland.

In the manuscript Idea philosophiae moralis, James Dundas, first Lord Arniston, a Presbyterian, a judge and a philosopher, makes extensive use of Stoic themes and authors. About one third of the manuscript is a close reading of Seneca. Dundas judges Stoicism from the perspective of Calvinism: the decisive complaint is that the Stoics are ‘prideful’ when they consider happiness to be within the grasp of fallen human reason. However, pride aside, Dundas is willing to recover some Stoic insights for his (...) Calvinist faith. In what ways? The promise of the practical rewards of Stoicism drives Dundas's interest in arguing that Stoicism can play a crucial psychological and moral contribution to a Christian's life. The investigation of Stoicism in the Idea philosophiae moralis sheds new light on the backdrop of the Scottish Enlightenment's relationship with Stoicism, commonly characterised as ‘Christian Stoicism’, as well as on the variety of the early modern Christian-Stoic syntheses, such as the Religio Stoici by George Mackenzie of Rosehaugh, a friend of Dundas's. (shrink)

The graduation theses of the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century are at the crossroads of philosophical and historical events of fundamental importance: Renaissance and Humanist philosophy, Scholastic and modern philosophy, Reformation and Counterreformation, the rise of modern science. The struggle among these tendencies shaped the culture of the seventeenth century. Graduation theses are a product of the Scholasticism of the modern age, which survived the Reformation in Scotland and decisively influenced Scottish philosophy in the seventeenth (...) century, including the reception of early modern philosophy. We can therefore speak of a ‘Scottish Scholasticism’, characterised by an original reception and interpretation of the long traditions of Scholastic philosophy and Aristotelianism. The aim of the thesis is the analysis of the general physics of the graduation theses: the two central theories are prime matter and movement. Natural philosophy is a particularly interesting case, and the main features of the graduation theses are the reception of Scholasticism alongside innovation within Scholasticism. Graduation theses adhere to the Scholastic tradition, especially Scotism, while being innovative in their opposition to Catholic forms of Scholasticism. Scottish Scholasticism can be then further qualified as an example of ‘Reformed Scholasticism’. (shrink)

In the Dutch debates on Cartesianism of the 1640s, a minority believed that some Cartesian views were in fact Calvinist ones. The paper argues that, among others, a likely precursor of this position is the Aristotelian Franco Burgersdijk (1590-1635), who held a reductionist view of accidents and of the essential extension of matter on Calvinist grounds. It seems unlikely that Descartes was unaware of these views. The claim is that Descartes had two aims in his Replies to Arnauld: to show (...) the compatibility of res extensa and the Catholic transubstantiation but also to differentiate the res extensa from some views of matter explicitly defended by some Calvinists. The association with Calvinism will be eventually used polemically against Cartesianism, for example in France. The paper finally suggests that, notwithstanding the points of conflict, the affinities between the theologically relevant theories of accidents, matter and extension ultimately facilitated the dissemination of Cartesianism among the Calvinists. (shrink)

This paper investigates aspects of the philosophy curriculum that Thomas Reid studied during his student years in Aberdeen. In order to assess the nature of philosophy teaching in early eighteenth-century Aberdeen, the graduation theses of the Scottish universities must be read with an eye to the long tradition of university teaching, which reaches back into the seventeenth century. I will seek to show how seventeenth-century Scottish Reformed scholasticism is the backdrop of the Scottish Enlightenment.

This is the first book to provide a coherent overview over the ethical implications of AI-related technologies in medicine. It explores how these technologies transform practices, relationships, and environments in the clinical field. It provides an introduction into ethical issues such as data security and privacy protection, bias and algorithmic fairness, trust and transparency, challenges to the doctor-patient relationship, and new perspectives for informed consent. The book focuses on the transformative impact that technology is having on medicine, and discusses several (...) strategies for dealing with the resulting challenges. It also introduces innovative methods of ethics research for addressing existing desiderata and future challenges. This book is written to inform health care professionals, policy-makers, and researchers in medicine, health sciences, nursing science, social sciences, and ethics, but may also function as a primary textbook for graduate as well as undergraduate university courses. (shrink)

Risk and crisis communication (RCC) is a current ethical issue subject to controversy, mainly due to the tension between individual liberty (a core component of fairness) and effectiveness. In this paper we propose a consistent definition of the RCC process in public health emergencies (PHERCC), which comprises six key elements: evidence, initiator, channel, publics, message, and feedback. Based on these elements and on a detailed analysis of their role in PHERCC, we present an ethical framework to help design, govern and (...) evaluate PHERCC strategies. The framework aims to facilitate RCC, incorporating effectiveness, autonomy, and fairness. It comprises five operational ethical principles: openness, transparency, inclusivity, understandability, and privacy. The resulting matrix helps understanding the interplay between the PHERCC process and the principles of the framework. The paper includes suggestions and recommendations for the implementation of the PHERCC matrix. (shrink)

This handbook is currently in development, with individual articles publishing online in advance of print publication. At this time, we cannot add information about unpublished articles in this handbook, however the table of contents will continue to grow as additional articles pass through the review process and are added to the site. Please note that the online publication date for this handbook is the date that the first article in the title was published online.

Emotions and personhood are important notions within the field of mental health care. How they are related is less evident. This book provides a framework for understanding the important and complex relationship between our emotional wellbeing and our sense of self, drawing on psychopathology, philosophy, and phenomenology.

How can we better understand and treat those suffering from schizophrenia and manic-depressive illnesses? This important new book takes us into the world of those suffering from such disorders. Using self descriptions, its emphasis is not on how mental health professionals view sufferers, but on how the patients themselves experience their disorder. A new volume in the International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry series, this book will be of great interest to all those working with sufferers from such disorders - (...) helping them to better understand their mental lives, and providing important insights into how best to treat them. (shrink)

Giovanni Mion defends the idea that knowledge is context relative, but, in contrast to current versions of epistemic contextualism, on his view, knowledge is relative to contexts that are objective. Following Christopher Gauker’s conception of what a context is, Mion argues that knowledge is relative to the speakers’ conversational goals; and since the best way to achieve the goals of a conversation depends upon the way the world really is, it follows that participants in a conversation might be unaware (...) of the content of the context that truly governs their conversation. Finally, Mion uses objective contexts to explain why practical interests have epistemic significance. According to him, if we assume that the primary function of language is not to share thoughts, but to achieve practical goals, and, accordingly, that knowledge attributions play primarily an action-guiding role (as opposed to a mind-revealing role), then we are in a better position to understand why knowledge is not just a matter of theoretical factors, but it is also a matter of how much is at stake. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique : "Questo lavoro di Giovanni Scirocco è una delle prime ricerche storiche sull'opera di Norberto Bobbio che si avvale in modo siste- matico delle carte del suo archivio personale conservate presso il Centro Studi Piero Gobetti di Torino. Argomento dello studio è il giudizio sulla guerra giusta nelle varie fasi dell'itinerario politico e culturale del filosofo a partire dal 1961, quando Bobbio in colloquio con Günther Anders matura la convinzione che di fronte alla guerra (...) nucleare siamo tutti potenzialmente obiettori di coscienza, fino alle posizioni da lui assunte di fronte alla Guerra del Golfo nel 1991 e alla guerra "umanitaria" con la Serbia nel 1999. In poche agili ma dense pagine il lettore può seguire lo svolgersi nel tempo delle argomentazioni di Bobbio, illustrate con documenti d'archivio e corroborate da una scelta intelligente e felice di brani tratti dai principali saggi bobbiani sulla pace e la guerra: la prefazione al libro "Essere e non essere. Diario di Hiroshima e Nagasaki" di Anders, "Il conflitto termonucleare e le tradizionali giustificazioni della guerra", "Filosofia della guerra nell'era atomica", "Diritto e guerra", "Il problema della guerra e le vie della pace".". (shrink)