Lectures in Intellectual History

Copyright: © Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews 2014-15. Lectures are not to be cited without permission of the author.

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Robin Douglass - The Moral Psychology of the Social Contract Nov 21, 2019

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Alex Douglas - Spinoza and Religion Nov 14, 2019

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Dr Alex Douglas is a lecturer in philosophy at the University of St Andrews.
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Paul Wood - The Rise and Fall of the Common Sense 'School' of Philosophy Nov 07, 2019

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The emergence of a Scottish 'school' of common sense philosophy has not yet been given the historical attention it deserves, despite the fact that the rise of common sense philosophy was one of the most important intellectual developments in the Atlantic world during the second half of the 18th century. In this lecture, Professor Paul Wood examines the responses of common sense philosophers such as James Beattie, James Oswald and Thomas Reid to David Hume's perceived scepticism and irreligion as well as Hume's subsequent reply to his critics. The lecture concludes with an account of the precipitous decline of the Scottish 'School' of common sense.
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Blair Worden - Ben Jonson and Liberty Nov 07, 2019

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Professor Blair Worden is an expert on early modern European history and the English Civil War period in particular. He has written numerous books, the principal of which are The Rump Parliament, 1648-1653 (1974), The Sound of Virtue: Philip Sidney's 'Arcadia' and Elizabethan Politics (1996), Roundhead Reputations: The English Civil Wars and the Passions of Posterity (2001), Literature and Politics in Cromwellian England: John Milton, Andrew Marvell, Marchamont Nedham (2007), The English Civil Wars 1640-1660 (2009) and God's Instruments: Political Conduct in the England of Oliver Cromwell (2012). In this lecture, Blair Worden explores Ben Jonson's conception of liberty in relation to the writing of history.
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Riccardo Bavaj - The Spatiality of Ideas: Ernst Fraenkel, Richard Löwenthal, and the "Westernisation" of Political Thought Oct 31, 2019

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Nicholas Mithen - Codifying Good Taste: Historical Scholarship and Epistemic Virtue in Early 18th Century Italy Oct 31, 2019

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Teresa Bejan - Equality and hierarchy in the thought of Mary Astell Oct 31, 2019

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Ever since Mary Astell was introduced as the "First English Feminist" in 1986, scholars have been perplexed by her dual commitments to natural equality and social, political, and ecclesiastical hierarchy. But any supposed "paradox" in her though is the product of a modernist conceit that treats equality and hierarchy as antonyms, assuming the former must be prior, normative, and hostile to the latter. Seeing this, two other crucial features of Astell's thought emerge: her ethics of ascent and the psychology of superiority. These, in turn, illuminate her lifelong fascination with ambition as a feminine virtue, as well as her curious embrace of Machiavelli. Astell's politics and ethics are thus doubly worthy of recovery, both as the product of a singularly brilliant early modern mind and as a fascinating but forgotten vision of "equality before egalitarianism" that sheds light on the persistent complexities of equality and hierarchy to this day.
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Susan James - Putting One's knowledge to work: Spinoza on 'fortitudo' Oct 31, 2019

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Recorded on February 13th 2018 at the University of St Andrews.
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David Armitage - The Dark Side of Enlightened Cosmopolitanism: Civilisation and Civil War Mar 14, 2018

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Modern cosmopolitanism traces its routes back to the Enlightenment. In its individual and collectivist strains, it has become programatically pacifist by virtue of many of its central defining features. Under such a regime of cosmopolitanism, one might imagine the Kantian goal of perpetual peace. Kant’s conception of cosmopolitanism was progressive and developmental, but also fundamentally conflicted. Its motor was that famous unsocial sociability, which compelled humans to seek peace even as they experienced destructive forms of competition. The connection between cosmopolitanism on one hand and peace on the other, therefore, is neither essential or natural; it is contingent and accidental despite the strong connection between modern contemporary cosmopolitanism and peace. Only recently have scholars acknowledged that cosmopolitanism might indeed have something to say about war, or that war might shed light on its limits and possibilities. Is contemporary cosmopolitanism theoretically robust enough to face the challenges of unconventional warfare in the 21st century? And if cosmopolitanism defines transnational borders as morally arbitrary, what can it tell us about conflicts that occur within such borders, that is to say about civil war? In this lecture, David Armitage pursues these and other important questions.
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Richard Whatmore - Scotland, Europe and the End of Enlightenment Nov 22, 2017

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Why did so many European luminaries who had lived through the turmoil of the French Revolution turn to Scotland as a state that might represent a model for the future of the world? In this Inaugural Lecture, Professor Richard Whatmore explains why so many figures at the end of the eighteenth century felt that the Enlightenment had failed, and that a new beginning was necessary in politics, economics, religion and culture. Europe had been torn apart by war and revolution; Scotland appeared to offer grounds for optimism, being characterised by economic development, religious peace and a distinctive sense of identity.
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