“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”—_Adam Ferguson_ During the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and other lesser thinkers described a theory of spontaneously generated social order. Ronald Hamowy discusses their contributions to this significant area of social theory, noting (...) that the revolutionary aspect of these philosophers’ thoughts was “the proposition that social phenomena of a high degree of intricacy are not the product of intentional design.” Hamowy shows that Hume is best known for his application of the theory to justice, developing it most thoroughly in the _Treatise of Human Nature. _Adam Smith’s first treatment of it is in the _Theory of Moral Sentiment, _published before the significant _Wealth of Nations. _There Smith uses it to explain the development of general rules that compose the moral fabric of societies. All of these thinkers used their notion of spontaneously generated social order to explain systems of moral rules and social systems. In addition Adam Ferguson and David Hume applied the theory to language, as well as to economic development. (shrink)

This article sets out to examine the role of teacher research and enquiry in the professional development of teachers. The context derives from the initiative of the Scottish Executive to enhance the status and working conditions of teachers. We consider the extent to which continuing professional development activities arising out of the Chartered Teacher Programme encourage teachers to value research, equip them to become research-minded and support them to engage in research and enquiry in their own professional contexts.

Instead of an editorial, in this issue of Environmental Values the publishers have been invited to comment on a local environmental issue that currently looms large in our Scottish island backyard. Divided from mainland Scotland by fifty miles of sea, the Outer Hebrides are a peripheral part of the already peripheral Scottish Highlands - a region of low production, and high demands on thinly spread national services. Fifteen years ago our economic salvation was to be the creation of (...) the largest stone quarry in Europe, to supply aggregate for the construction industry in South-east England and mainland Europe. After two Public Inquiries and much legal wrangling this proposal was eventually laid to rest. Its eventual defeat was at least partly due to the united front against the proposed development that was maintained by a coalition of virtually all the environmental NGOs that function north of the English border.1In environmental terms, aggregates, the landscape damage caused by quarrying, and the connection with road-building and increasing motor traffic are readily characterised as a 'bad thing', but the latest threat to the Scottish and island landscape is a less clear-cut environmental bad. The prospect of large-scale windfarms, and the associated transmission lines that would be required to deliver electric power from them to markets in the South, is one that has already divided environmental groups; with Friends of the Earth generally in favour, Greenpeace equivocal, and landscape- and wildlife-oriented NGOs against. For wind energy has long been promoted as a 'green' alternative to damaging fossil fuels and dangerous nuclear power, and its proponents argue that we should not be deflected on merely aesthetic grounds from grasping a technology that could save the world from climate catastrophe. This division of the environmental camp inevitably makes it more likely the developers will prevail. As with the superquarry, scale is part of the problem: the proposed developments are massive - mouth-wateringly so to local councils and landowners attracted by the prospect of multi-million pound revenues, devastatingly so to the majority of local residents and to the many walkers and climbers who visit the Highlands and Islands for their majestic and unspoilt scenery.The following extracts from recent press releases by the John Muir Trust and the local campaigning group Moorlands Without Turbines, and the developers' mock-up of thevisual impact of one of the local proposals above, will convey to readers the scale of proposals for Scottish windfarms, the strength of local feeling and the real dilemmas faced by NGOs in developing a coherent response.... targets set in the [renewable energy] strategy for Highland Council area are greater than those of the Scottish Executive for the whole of Scotland ... The Scottish Executive has a renewable energy target for 2020 which requires another 3,400 MW in Scotland. The Highland Council Renewable Strategy sets a target of over 4,000 MW from new renewable energy.The Highland Council targets do not seem to have been strategically set in relation to factors outside the Highlands but look as if they are based on the maximum possible installation based on the most liberal planning regime.2Scottish Executive Minister Allan Wilson has given the first official statistics on the number of objections for the proposed North Lewis Peatlands Windfarm - the world's largest onshore windfarm.In a response to written questions by Green MSP Shiona Baird, Mr. Wilson states: 'Prior to Comhairle nan Eilean Siar [Western Isles Council] submitting its consultation response the Executive recorded six responses in support and 2,713 objections to the Lewis Windpower proposal from Western Isles residents. Since Western Isles Council submitted their consultation response, the Executive has recorded 11 responses of support and 1,860 objections to the Lewis Windpower proposal, from Western Isles residents'In total a massive 6,131 objections have been received of which 4,573 come from local people. The figures show that for every person who wrote to support the scheme from the islands 269 people wrote and objected.Lewis based Moorland without Turbines chairperson Catriona Campbell, who is campaigning against the joint AMEC and British Energy project said:'At last we have official confirmation of the unprecedented level of protest against this industrialisation of our land. Till now our local MSP and Council have refused to acknowledge the sentiment of the island. The Council voted in favour of it against the wishes of those who will be affected. Every community council and councillor in North Lewis, the area directly affected, has voted resoundingly against it.'...The proposed 234 turbines, each higher than the Forth Rail bridge, and 167km of new road would cover moorland that is protected by European Law for its wildlife interest, including international populations of species such as Golden Eagles, Red-throated Divers and Golden Plovers.3The Lingerabay Superquarry saga was a rich source for academic case-studies; we confidently predict that we shall hear more about the 'green energy' debate in the pages of this journal. (shrink)

A filosofia com crianças, em todas as suas guisas, visa engendrar o pensamento filosófico e o raciocínio nas crianças. Muito é escrito sobre o que a participação na filosofia poderia fazer para a criança academicamente e emocionalmente. O que propomos aqui é que permitindo às crianças participar de diálogos filosóficos elas aprenderão uma abordagem que poderia dar suporte a sua participação na sociedade e que poderia envolvê-las na consideração e no arejamento de suas vistas, tomando decisões em suas interações e (...) relacionamentos com os outros. É inevitável que, vivendo com os outros, se encontrem os valores dos outros. É essencial, portanto, que as crianças aprendam como lidar com os valores dos outros mas também que elas aprendam como desenvolver os seus próprios pelo questionamento e a reflexão. Melhor que ensinar às crianças sobre os valores ou ensinar-lhes os valores que elas deveriam ter, este artigo sugere que às crianças deveriam ser proporcionadas oportunidades de explorar uma variedade de perspectivas e que elas precisam aprender a fazer isto. Além disso, no entanto, a fim de viver harmoniosamente com os outros, existem considerações sobre ética a serem encontradas. As crianças precisam aprender como lidar com política, arte, ciência, literatura e a maior variedade de problemas que a vida em sociedade inclui. De fato, as crianças precisam aprender o que é requerido para ser um cidadão. Aqui o aprendizado da criança é contextualizado no Currículo de Excelência da Escócia, no qual se espera das crianças que elas sejam capazes de “fazer escolhas e tomar decisões informadas” e de “desenvolver pontos de vista informados e éticos de problemas complexos” (Scottish Executive, 2004, p.12) como parte de sua educação para a cidadania. Se ser um cidadão envolve esses elementos, então existe um desafio para os professores no que concerne a como as crianças vão alcançar os resultados desejados. O objetivo de tal currículo é que a criança ‘aprenda para a vida’ adquirindo as competências para a vida de forma que a sociedade se beneficie. É colocado, neste artigo, que participando dos diálogos filosóficos uma pessoa é suscetível de favorecer uma apreciação dos outros e de suas perspectivas, de compreender que os valores e opiniões de alguém evoluem, que essa visão filosófica pode, de fato, funcionar para a melhora da sociedade. Contudo, o que é sugerido é que fazendo filosofia aprende-se como viver bem. (shrink)

The morning-after pill has been promoted as a solution to the growing teenage sexual health problem being witnessed in Scotland. The continuing increase in sexually transmitted infections (STIs), recorded in recent reports of the Scottish Centre for Infections and Environmental Health2, has come as a shock to members of the health profession across Scotland. Documenting a marked increase in teenage sexual activity, the report raises urgent questions about the impact of the “safe sex” message in our classrooms and the (...) Scottish Executive’s overall approach to teenage sexual health. One specific feature of this approach that has prompted concern from General Practitioners (GPs), parents and educators (and others) has been the official policy on the promotion of the morning-after pill as a method of contraception. When appropriately initiated within 72 hours of unprotected coitus, emergency contraception will prevent approximately 80% of pregnancies in teens and young women who are mid-cycle and, thus, at risk of pregnancy.3 But this policy has not been based on a clear and rigorous understanding of the properties, the function and the efficacy of the morning-after pill. Neither has there been adequate and in-depth research on the short and long-term safety implications of the morning-after pill. In light of proposals to increase the availability of the morning-after pill, the overall aim of this Briefing Paper is: 1. to provide specific answers to the questions raised above, based on research evidence; and 2. to provide an independent source of information on the most recent research on the morning-after pill and STIs, for parents, teachers, politicians, members of the health and legal professions and other interested parties. (shrink)

Abstract The values of the healthcare sector are fairly ubiquitous across the globe, focusing on caring and respect, patient health, excellence in care delivery, and multi-stakeholder collaboration. Many individual pharmacists embrace these core values. But their ability to honor these values is significantly determined by the nature of the system they work in. -/- The paper starts with a model of the prevailing pharmacist workforce model in Scotland, in which core roles are predominantly separated into hierarchically disaggregated jobs focused on (...) one professional ‘pillar’: Clinician /Practice Provider; Educator; Leader/Manager; and Researcher. This is the ‘Atomistic’ Model. This skills-segregation yields a workforce of individuals working in isolation rather than collaborating together, and lacking a shared information flow, purpose and identity. Key strategic flaws include suboptimal responsiveness to population and subpopulation needs, inconsistency and inequity of care, an erosion of professional agency, and lower job satisfaction. It is conjectured that this results from a lack of congruence between values, professional ethos, and organizational structure. ‘Atomism’ culminates in a syndrome of widespread professional-level cognitive dissonance. -/- The paper contrasts this with a new emerging workforce vision, The Collaborative Care Model. This new model defines a systems-first-approach, built on the principle that all jobs must include all four professional ‘pillars’. Vertical skills integration, involving education and task sharing, will support sustainability and succession planning. Horizontal skills integration (across practice, leadership and research) is included to improve responsiveness to population need and individual professional agency. The working conditions, supportive ethos, and career structure needed to make the model work are described. Moral theory and workforce theory are used to justify why the model may be more effective for population health, delivering greater job satisfaction for individuals and ultimately helping systematically realize and honor healthcare values. Finally, the paper sketches the first steps needed to implement the model at the national level, starting with the operationalization of new multi-pillar professional curricula across the career spectrum. Potential pitfalls and challenges are also discussed. -/- Co-Authors: 1. Paul Forsyth (PF) Lead Pharmacist Clinical Cardiology, Pharmacy, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde. Contribution: Conceptualization; Model Curation; Model Theory; Model Visualization; Writing - original draft (lead author), Writing - review & editing (lead author) 2. Andrew Radley (AR), Consultant in Public Health Pharmacy, NHS Tayside. Contribution: Conceptualization; Model curation; Model Theory; Writing - review & editing 3. Gordon Rushworth (GR), MPharm MSc FFRPS FRPharmS (Consultant). Programme Director, Highland Pharmacy Education & Research Centre, NHS Highland, Inverness. Contribution: Model curation; Writing - review & editing 4. Fiona Marra (FM) National Lead Clinician Scottish Infection and Immunology Network (SPAIIN) / Advanced Pharmacist HCV / HIV, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde. Contribution: Model curation; Writing - review & editing 5. Susan Roberts (SR) Associate Postgraduate Pharmacy Dean, NHS Education for Scotland. Contribution: Model curation; Writing - review & editing 6. Roisin O’Hare (RO) Lead Teacher Practitioner Pharmacist, Northern Ireland University Network, Southern Health and Social Care Trust. Contribution: Model curation; Writing - review & editing 7. Catherine Duggan (CD) Chief Executive Officer, International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP). Contribution: Model curation; Writing - review & editing 8. Barry Maguire (BM) Senior Lecturer, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Life Sciences, The University of Edinburgh. Contribution: Conceptualization; Model Curation; Model Theory; Model Visualization; Supervision; Writing - original draft (senior academic supervisor), Writing - review & editing (senior academic supervisor) -/- . (shrink)

It seemed like only minutes after a team of Scottish scientists announced, in late February 1997, that they had successfully cloned a sheep, that governmental officials and private citizens throughout the world called for a ban on cloning human beings. The rush to legislate or issue executive orders was so swift, it is reasonable to wonder why the news that a mammal had been cloned ignited such a stampede to prohibit, even criminalize, attempts to clone humans. These events (...) raise a series of separate, yet related questions. Why does the prospect of cloning human beings incite such strong reactions? What reasons have been proposed for enacting national laws or international conventions to prohibit cloning? Can these prohibitions be justified by sound ethical arguments? Before attempting to answer these questions, let us look first at the responses that called for public policy measures to ban human cloning. (shrink)

SUMMARYThe Machiavellian Moment was largely responsible for establishing what remains the dominant understanding of American Revolutionary ideology. Patriots, on this account, were radical whigs; their great preoccupation was a terror of crown power and executive corruption. This essay proposes to test the whig reading of patriot political thought in a manner suggested by Professor Pocock's pioneering first book, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. The whig tradition, as he taught us, located in the remote Saxon past an ‘ancient (...) constitution’ of liberty, in which elected monarchs merely executed laws approved by their free subjects in a primeval parliament. This republican idyll, whigs believed, was then tragically interrupted by the Norman Conquest of 1066, which introduced feudal tenures and monarchical tyranny. Did patriot theorists accept this narrative? The answer, I shall argue, is strikingly mixed. By the early 1770s, appeals to the ‘ancient constitution’ had become less common in patriot writing. And by the end of the 1770s, many patriots had absorbed a completely different understanding of the feudal past—one pioneered by Royalist historians of the seventeenth century and then adapted by Scottish historians of the eighteenth. This shift reflects a broader transformation in patriot political and constitutional theory. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? Was (...) there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

This work attempts to show that the Scottish common sense philosophers Thomas Reid, James Oswald and James Beattie, had a substantial influence upon the development of German thought during the period of the late enlightenment. Their works were thoroughly reviewed in German philosophical journals and translated into German soon after they had appeared in English. Whether it was Mendelssohn, a rationalist, Lossius, a materialist, Feder, a sensationalist, Tetens, a critical empiricist, or Hamann and Jacobi, irrationalist philosophers of faith, important (...) philosophers read the Scots and found them relevant for the solution of their problems. The Scots were seen as not just opposing Hume's skepticism, but also as complementing his more positive tenets. The most important chapter of this work shows that even Kant, who in this regard is known only for his devastating criticism of the Scots, learned much from them. It is argued that the Scottish influence opens a new perspective for the understanding of the German enlightenment, revealing how central were the twin problems of idealism versus realism, on the one hand, and of philosophical justification versus mere descriptive metaphysics, on the other. (shrink)

Psychopathy, executive functions, and neuropsychological data: a response to Sifferd and Hirstein.

Shows that executive integrity is not merely a moral trait but a dynamic process of making empathetic, responsible, and sound decisions. Describes key features of executive integrity including effective social interaction, open dialogue, and responsive leadershipand explains how integrity can be developed and practiced in today's organizations.

David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, John Millar, James Dunbar and Gilbert Stuart were at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thought. This introductory survey offers the student a clear, accessible interpretation and synthesis of the social thought of these historically significant thinkers. Organised thematically, it takes the student through their accounts of social institutions, their critique of individualism, their methodology, their views of progress and of moral and cultural values. By taking human sociality as their (...) premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society. (shrink)

The Scottish Common Sense School of philosophy emerged during the Scottish Enlightenment of the second half of the eighteenth century. The School’s principal proponents were Thomas Reid, James Oswald, James Beattie and Dugald Stewart. They believed that we are all naturally implanted with an array of common sense intuitions and these intuitions are in fact the foundation of truth. Their approach dominated philosophical thought in Great Britain and the United States until the mid nineteenth century. In recent years (...) philosophers have renewed their appreciation of the notion of common sense. In particular, discussions of common sense intuitions are integral to contemporary epistemological foundationalism. Scottish Common Sense Philosophy: Sources and Origins is a 5-volume collection of writings by and about philosophers in the eighteenth-century Scottish Common Sense School. The writings by Thomas Reid and Dugald Stewart are readily available in recent editions and facsimile reprints so this series focuses on less accessible and less well-known items. Oswald’s Appeal appears here in print for the first time in any form since 1772. Volume 2 is the first reset printing of Beattie’s Essay in over 100 years, and is the only edition to contain annotations that trace the major changes that he made to the text. Almost all of the responses in volumes 3 and 4 appear here in print for the first time since their original publication. These include reviews, pamphlets and excerpts from books. Also included is previously unpublished discussion of Beattie’s Essay by Dugald Stewart. The final volume is a bibliography of around 80 Scottish philosophers from the early eighteenth century to the close of the nineteenth century. Unlike the 1932 bibliography of Scottish philosophers offered by T. E. Jessop, which selectively presents only the philosophical writings by the various Scottish philosophers, this volume attempts to catalogue all of the writings by these philosophers in all of their editions. (shrink)

James McCosh, the Scottish philosopher, graduated from the University of Glasgow, spent some time as a minister in the Church of Scotland but then returned to philosophy and spent most of his career at Princeton University. The eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment had many influential philosophers at its core. In this book, first published in 1875, McCosh outlines the theories of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century philosophers and identifies Scottish philosophy as a distinct school of thought. He summarises both the merits (...) and the possible criticisms of each philosopher's work and also gives detailed biographical information. Among the philosophers discussed are the influential David Hume, Thomas Reid and Adam Smith. The final chapter focuses on Sir William Hamilton, a philosopher who greatly influenced McCosh. (shrink)

1875. McCosh, Eleventh President of Princeton University, he was a supporter of the Scottish School of Philosophy, and the work of Thomas Reid and Dugald ...

Historians of science have long been intrigued by the impact of disparate cultural styles on the science of a given country and time period. Richard Olson’s book is a case study in the interaction between philosophy and science as well as an examination of a particular scientific movement. The author investigates the methodological arguments of the Common Sense philosophers Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, and William Hamilton and the possible transmission of their ideas to scientists from John Playfair to (...) James Clerk Maxwell. His findings point out the need for modifications to the Duhem-Poincaré interpretation of British scientific style and the reassessment of the extent of Kantian influence on British physics. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Philosophy was at the core of the eighteenth century movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment. The movement included major figures, such as Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid and Adam Ferguson, and also many others who produced notable works, such as Gershom Carmichael, George Turnbull, George Campbell, James Beattie, Alexander Gerard, Henry Home (Lord Kames) and Dugald Stewart. I discuss some of the leading ideas of these thinkers, though paying less attention than I otherwise would to Hume, (...) Smith and Reid, who have separate Encyclopedia entries. Amongst the topics covered in this entry are aesthetics (particularly Hutcheson's), Moral philosophy (particularly Hutcheson's and Smith's), Turnbull's providential naturalism, Kames's doctrines on divine goodness and human freedom, Campbell's criticism of the Humean account of miracles, the philosophy of rhetoric, Ferguson's criticism of the idea of a state of nature, and finally the concept of conjectural history, a concept especially associated with Dugald Stewart. (shrink)

How is the (il)legitimacy of manager compensation constructed in social interaction? This study investigated discursive processes through which heavily contested executive pay schemes of the Finnish energy giant Fortum were constructed as (il)legitimate in public during 2005–2009. The critical discursive analysis of media texts identified five legitimation strategies through which politicians, journalists, and other social actors contested these schemes and, at the same time, constructed subject positions for managers, politicians, and citizens. The comparison of two debate periods surrounding the (...) 2007–2008 financial crisis revealed significant differences in the discursive strategies and the corresponding moral struggles linked to legitimation of executive compensation. The analysis highlights a change in moral reasoning by social actors as they adapt their justifications to a changing social context. This study has important implications for our understanding of the ethical aspects and socio-political embeddedness of manager compensation. In particular, it adds to our knowledge of organizational legitimacy by showing how discursive strategies and the corresponding morality constructions used to (de)legitimate business activities can shift quickly as a result of a change in the social and political climate surrounding the legitimation struggle. (shrink)

By founding morality on the particular sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith implied that the nature of moral judgment was far more intuitive and accessible than their rationalist predecessors and contemporaries would, or at least easily could, allow. And yet, these ‘Sentimentalists’ faced the longstanding belief that the human affective psyche is a veritable labyrinth – an obstacle to practical morality if not something literally brutish in us. The Scottish Sentimentalists thus implicitly tasked themselves with (...) distinguishing and locating the particular sentiments of approbation and disapprobation in the human psyche. In this paper, I argue that this task led Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Smith to adopt a remarkable thesis when it came to the nature of the moral sentiments, namely, that the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation are peculiar – somehow radically unlike other sentiments. (shrink)

CHAPTER Introduction I do not take lightly the title of this book. I believe that Scottish philosophy matters greatly and my principal aim is to say why it ...

It is a commonplace that the writers of eighteenth century Scotland played a key role in shaping the early practice of social science. This paper examines how this ‘Scottish’ contribution to the Enlightenment generation of social science was shaped by the fascination with unintended consequences. From Adam Smith's invisible hand to Hume's analysis of convention, through Ferguson's sociology, and Millar's discussion of rank, by way of Robertson's View of Progress, the concept of unintended consequences pervades the writing of the (...) period. The paper argues that the idea of unintended order shapes the understanding of the purpose of theoretical social science that emerges from the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

A review of: Manfred Kuehn. Scottish Common Sense in Germany, 1768-1800: A Contribution to the History of Critical Philosophy. (McGill-Queen's Studies in the History of Ideas.) xiv + 300 pp., app., bibl., index. Kingston, Ont./Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1987. $35.

One of the great attractions of Thomas Reid's account of knowledge is that he attempted to avoid the alternative between skepticism and dogmatism. This attempt, however, faces serious problems. It is argued here that there is a pragmatist way out of the problems, and that there are even hints to this solution in Reid's writings.

Resumen Los filósofos sentimentalistas escoceses David Hume y Adam Smith proponen dos estrategias distintas para restringir las tendencias egoístas de la naturaleza humana. A pesar de las evidentes similitudes de sus propuestas morales, Smith encuentra dentro del ser humano la capacidad para transformar sus pasiones parciales y aspirar hacia ideales de perfección. El sentimentalismo de Hume, en cambio, no permite la autotransformación de la persona, y debe apoyarse en convenciones sociales para manipular y redirigir los impulsos egoístas desde fuera. Ambos (...) logran su objetivo. Pero mientras Hume se conforma con una moral funcional para la vida social, Smith abre una nueva dimensión de desarrollo para el ser humano.The Scottish sentimentalist philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith suggest different strategies for restricting and accommodating human selfish tendencies. In spite of the obvious similarities of their moral proposals, Smith finds within the human being the capacity to transform his partial passions and to aspire to ideals of perfection. In contrast, Hume's sentimentalism does not allow for self-transformation, and must rely on social conventions to manipulate and redirect selfish impulses from without. Both attempts achieve their goal. However, while for Hume peaceful social interaction seems to be the only aim of morality; for Smith morality also opens a new dimension of development for the human being. (shrink)

Recently, connectionist models have been developed that seem to exhibit structuresensitive cognitive capacities without executing a program. This paper examines one such model and argues that it does execute a program. The argument proceeds by showing that what is essential to running a program is preserving the functional structure of the program. It has generally been assumed that this can only be done by systems possessing a certain temporalcausal organization. However, counterfactualpreserving functional architecture can be instantiated in other ways, for (...) example geometrically, which are realizable by connectionist networks. (shrink)

The Scottish Enlightenment provided the fledgling United States of America and its emerging universities with a philosophical orientation. For a hundred years or more, Scottish philosophers were both taught and emulated by professors at Princeton, Harvard and Yale, as well as newly founded colleges stretching from Rhode Island to Texas. This volume in the Library of Scottish Philosophy demonstrates the remarkable extent of this philosophical influence. Selections from William Smith, John Witherspoon, Samuel Stanhope Smith, Archibald Alexander, Alexander (...) Campbell, W.E. Channing, James McCosh, and C.S. Peirce, together with the editor's introductory and explanatory material, provide the modern reader with unprecedented access to this period of intellectual formation. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn a recent issue of this journal, David Silver and Gerald Dworkin discuss the physicians' role in execution by lethal injection. Dworkin concludes that discussion by stating that, at that point, he is unable to think of an acceptable set of moral principles to support the view that it is illegitimate for physicians to participate in execution by lethal injection that would not rule out certain other plausible moral judgements, namely that euthanasia is under certain conditions legitimate and that organ‐donation (...) surgery is sometimes permissible. This article draws attention to some problems in the views of Silver and Dworkin and suggests moral principles which support the three moral views just mentioned. (shrink)

This new history of Scottish philosophy will include two volumes that focus on the Scottish Enlightenment. In this volume a team of leading experts explore the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, and many other thinkers, frame old issues in fresh ways, and introduce new topics and questions into debates about the philosophy of this remarkable period. The contributors explore the distinctively Scottish context of this philosophical flourishing, and juxtapose the work of canonical (...) philosophers with contemporaries now very seldom read. The outcome is a broadening-out, and a filling-in of the detail, of the picture of the philosophical scene of Scotland in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

This new history of Scottish philosophy will include two volumes that focus on the Scottish Enlightenment. In this volume a team of leading experts explore the ideas, intellectual context, and influence of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, Reid, and many other thinkers, frame old issues in fresh ways, and introduce new topics and questions into debates about the philosophy of this remarkable period. The contributors explore the distinctively Scottish context of this philosophical flourishing, and juxtapose the work of canonical (...) philosophers with contemporaries now very seldom read. The outcome is a broadening-out, and a filling-in of the detail, of the picture of the philosophical scene of Scotland in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

This paper discusses an example of Scottish-Polish cooperation on research, undertaken at the turn of the twentieth century, into the dialogues and philosophy of Plato. Two scholars were involved in this research: the Scottish classical scholar and historian of ancient philosophy, Lewis Campbell, and the Polish Plato scholar and philosopher, Wincenty Lutosławski. Their research on the chronology of Plato's dialogues is analysed and the reception of their works discussed. The paper is enriched with some excerpts from their correspondence.

This paper considers how a number of particular disabilities can impact agency primarily by affecting what psychologists refer to as ‘executive function.’ Some disabilities, I argue, could decrease agency even without fully undermining it. I see this argument as contributing to the growing literature that sees agency as coming in degrees. The first section gives a broad outline of a fairly standard approach to agency. The second section relates that framework to the existing literature, which suggests that agency comes (...) in degrees. The third section considers the psychological literature on executive function with a particular focus on how aspects of executive function contribute to agency. I then consider, in sections 4 and 5, two disabilities that have an impact on an agent’s executive function. Other disabilities will likely involve comparable impacts, although I don’t have time to explore additional disabilities in the present paper. (shrink)

Metacognition refers to any knowledge or cognitive process that monitors or controls cognition. We highlight similarities between metacognitive and executive control functions, and ask how these processes might be implemented in the human brain. A review of brain imaging studies reveals a circuitry of attentional networks involved in these control processes, with its source located in midfrontal areas. These areas are active during conflict resolution, error correction, and emotional regulation. A developmental approach to the organization of the anatomy involved (...) in executive control provides an added perspective on how these mechanisms are influenced by maturation and learning, and how they relate to metacognitive activity. (shrink)

The extent to which British Idealism was heavily influenced by Scots has been little noticed, yet not only were they at the forefront of introducing Hegel into Britain in the work of Ferrier, Carlyle, Hutcheson, Stirling and Edward Caird, but they were also distinctive in locating themselves in relation to the Scottish philosophical tradition they sought to extend. The Scottish Idealists, among them Edward Caird, David George Ritchie, Andrew Seth Pringle Pattison, William Mitchell, John Watson, and the Welshman (...) Henry Jones who found his spiritual home in Glasgow, comprised a formidable force and dominated the philosophical professoriate in Britain, Australia and Canada from the late nineteenth century to the years leading up to the First World War. Its main centres were St. Andrews, Glasgow and Edinburgh in Scotland, Cardiff in Wales, and Oxford in England. This collection of readings, the first of its kind, has been chosen with a view to displaying the variety, richness and strength of the Scottish Idealist tradition, beginning with an essay from the famous Essays in Philosophical Criticism, a book that set-out the future direction of enquiry for this group of thinkers who shared a 'common purpose or tendency'. Scottish Idealism was immensely spiritual in character and recognized no hard and fast distinctions between philosophy, religion, poetry and science. It was a formidable force in social and educational reform.. (shrink)

Explicitly utopian novels are relatively uncommon in twentieth-century Scottish fiction, perhaps due to a prevailing conception of Scottish literature as inherently peripheral; for many critics and authors, Scotland is already a place outside the mainstream of political and historical narrative. Utopian themes and imagery, however, have frequently been used by Scottish writers to address the role of religious experience in contemporary life. In novels by Robin Jenkins, Neil M. Gunn, Alasdair Gray, and Iain M. Banks, the utopian (...) form presents the possibility of abandoning traditional religious practices in favor of direct discourse with the divine. Even as they appear to repudiate organized religion, these novels also demonstrate the continued relevance of God and myth. Whether in outright science fiction such as Banks’s Culture series and portions of Gray’s “Lanark,” classical utopias such as Gunn’s “The Green Isle of the Great Deep,” or ostensibly realist novels such as Jenkins’s “The Missionaries,” utopian imagery is used to examine what role the divine might have in a secular society. These Scottish utopias offer a place to discuss the relationships between individuals, communities, and nations and how these relationships are reconstituted in a modernity where God is known only as absence. (shrink)

In his lengthy introduction, Alexander Broadie emphasizes not only the diversity of intellectual discussion taking place in Scotland, but also the European ...

Originally published in 1913, this book presents a history of Scottish education from the pre-Reformation period up until 1913. Discussion of both schools and universities is included, with special attention given to major institutions and their educational contribution. Textual notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Scotland and the history of education.