James Beattie

This AHRC funded PhD thesis examines the relationship between Scottish Enlightenment philosophy and Abolitionist activism. This work asserts that Scottish philosophers opposed legislative Abolition, and that Henry Dundas’s ‘gradual’ amendment to Wilberforce’s 1792 Slave Trade bill was partly motivated by fear of radical change. This amendment has been acknowledged by many as the reason the Slave Trade was allowed to continue, despite public disapprobation, until 1807. First, by examining the writings of those Scottish Enlightenment thinkers critical of slavery, this work demonstrates that their ideas were largely theoretical and lacked engagement with the problem of slavery in British society. Second, in examining why, when their writings against slavery have been so lauded, they made so little a direct contribution to the Abolitionist movement, this thesis explores the Scottish Enlightenment theory of spontaneous order in the generation of social institutions. Drawing upon the warnings of some of these Scottish literati, this thesis will argue that their belief in spontaneous order encouraged them to view any attempt at altering social structures (such as the Slave Trade) through legislation as dangerous innovations that should be opposed by enlightened thinkers and politicians. This thesis next examines the parliamentary debates surrounding the 1792 Abolition bill, highlighting the similarities between the Scottish Enlightenment polemic against radical change and the arguments of those opposing Wilberforce’s Slave Trade bill. MPs embraced Dundas’ gradual Abolition idea despite petitions in support of the original bill signed by their constituents, the views of whom were considered secondary to their own judgement on such matters. That the 1792 failure of Abolition was not due to a denial of the principle of ending slavery but a rejection of abrupt change demonstrates that the Scottish Enlightenment, through the agency of Dundas, encouraged delaying the abolition of the Slave Trade for fifteen years.

Throughout the history of the abolition of the Slave Trade and Colonial slavery the city of Aberdeen and it's surrounds played a role far and above what it's size and regional locality might have suggested. This dissertation examines primary sources to expose the history of the people of Aberdeenshire who contributed to the Abolitionist cause. From writers such as James Beattie, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Marischal College, and the strongly anti-slavery editors of the Aberdeen Journal in the late eighteenth century to the dedicated and zealous members of the Aberdeen Anti-Slavery Society who, in 1828, roused the shire to contribute more petitions to the emancipationist cause than any other region in the United Kingdom. Unique debates and documents reveal the extent to which this small corner of Scotland played both a potential and actual role in the removal of slavery in the British Empire.

James Beattie was an opponent of Slavery in his lectures. In 1778 he wrote a tract entitled On the Lawfulness and Expediency of Slavery, the first document written by a member of the literati specifically addressing the issue of black slavery. Its argument was relentless and persuasive however Beattie withheld it from publication for 14 years despite the urgings from key Abolitionists. Was this reluctance to publish merely a lack of assurance of his sources, or was indicative of a fear of speaking out on a controversial subject? This paper will explore both the circumstances for Beattie writing against slavery and possible reasons why this key figure declined the opportunity to spearhead the abolition movement in Scotland.

A paper given at the 2014 BSHP conference on The Common Sense Philosophy. Argues that relations between Hume and his common sense critics (Kames, Reid, Campbell, Beattie) were more complex and interesting than generally assumed. Focusses in particular on the first Enquiry as a response to the kind of criticism that the common sense philosophers tended to make of Hume's scepticism. And argues that the first Enquiry sees Hume make a decisive and self-conscious shift to a peculiarly modern form of philosophical scepticism.

Looking back at the early thought of parliamentary reform pioneer Major John Cartwright (1740-1824) in an essay of 1812, Samuel Taylor Coleridge contended that no-one could ‘have more nakedly or emphatically identified the foundations of Government in the concrete with those of religion and morality in the abstract.’

Indeed, Cartwright himself repeatedly stated that moral and religious considerations formed the fundamental basis of his political perspective. From his early statement, made in a letter of 1775, that ‘the principles on which politics are built, are the principles of reason, morality, and religion, applied to the concerns of large communities,’ he repeatedly asserted, throughout his career, that all temporal ‘rules of prudence and policy’ depended for their validity upon their being ‘strictly just and perfectly consonant with morality and religion.’

It is the fundamental contention of this article that Cartwright’s ideas are only comprehensible if we take these statements seriously and place his arguments within the context of eighteenth-century debates about the nature of moral knowledge, as well as considering his thought in the light of the broad Dissenting and Anglican latitudinarian tradition of rational religion.

In a 1766 letter, Beattie states his intention to write a book on the nature of truth with this central thesis: "that as we know nothing of the eternal relations of things, that to us is and must be truth, which we feel that we must believe; and that to us is falsehood, which we feel that we must disbelieve." In more contemporary wording, his bold point is that we must reject the correspondence theory of truth (i.e., that true statements are those that correspond with reality) since we do not have access to the world of facts. Instead, we must adopt a common sense standard of truth, which bases truth upon an instinctive conviction of foundational concepts. He states this thesis prominently in the first edition of his Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth (1770) -- in wording very similar to that in the letter. However, in his final revision of the Essay in 1776, he deleted the relevant sentences, thereby diluting -- if not destroying -- the book’s most innovative point. Why did he do this? He was apparently swayed by harsh criticisms of his thesis, particularly by Joseph Priestley. I discuss Beattie's claim, the attacks, and suggest ways in which a common sense standard of truth might be viable.

This is a new edition of "An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth", by Scottish philosopher James Beattie (1735-1803). It is the most infamous attack on the philosophy of David Hume that appeared during Hume's life. This new edition is taken from the first edition of 1770, and collated with the 1771 second edition and the 1776 edition, which was most likely the final one that Beattie revised. This new edition contains an editor's introduction and annotations throughout.

Open Access Version: https://e-book.fwf.ac.at/o:1277

This study explores the historical development of Hanslick´s reception in Anglo-American discourse up to his notable impact on analytical philosophy of music. Chapter 1 addresses the general outline of Hanslick scholarship and identifies disparate scholarly approaches to current research on Hanslick´s writings. Chapter 2 scrutinizes several long-held ‘myths’ in regard to Hanslick´s treatise, laying the necessary groundwork for the ensuing analysis. Chapter 3 illustrates the historical framework of Hanslick´s reception by indicating differences between the language-dependent approaches to OMB, by determining preconditions for Hanslick´s influence and incipient reception as well as by discussing peculiar aspects of the complete English renditions of his aesthetic treatise. Chapter 4 resolves numerous narratives regarding Hanslick´s formalism, linked closely to specific authors (Kant, Bell, Schenker). It identifies the specific versions of aesthetic formalism that both the ‘New Musicology’ and analytical philosophy of music commonly attribute to him, and critically assesses whether formalism as an abstract category is a viable concept. Chapter 5 explores the positive reception of OMB in the field of analytical philosophy of music, motivated primarily by Hanslick´s cognitive theory of emotion. The conclusion investigates subsequent developments of his (implicit) notion of ‘enhanced formalism’ via recent theories of Stephen Davies and Peter Kivy.

This is a bibliography of the twelve most important Scottish philosophers associated with the common sense school. They are, alphabetically, John Abercrombie,  James Beattie, Thomas Brown, George Campbell, James Dunbar, David Fordyce, Alexander Gerard, William Hamilton, Henry Home Lord Kames, James Oswald, Thomas Reid, and Dugald Stewart.