THE PRIMACY OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY: DUGALD STEWART AND THE SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT By Jennifer Maree Tannoch-Bland, B.A., Hons.1A School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2000 Abstract Dugald Stewart was an influential teacher and philosopher during the final years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Until recently he has been seen as merely a significant expositor of Thomas Reid’s common sense philosophy. This thesis does not attempt to assess the novelty of Stewart’s writings in relation to his Scottish predecessors such as Reid: rather, it offers a detailed historical study of aspects of his work, placing them in the political and cultural context of the period following the French Revolution. Two questions stimulated this thesis. First, what prompted Stewart, a moral philosopher who was not an experimental philosopher, to write a major work on methodology? Second, why was there a gap of twenty-two years between the first volume of his Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind (1792) and the second (1814), which contained his methodological treatise? I aim to answer these questions by offering a contextual intellectual history of some important aspects of Stewart’s work. The thesis argues that Stewart faced a new problem: he had to deal with attacks on moral philosophy – the core subject of the Edinburgh University curriculum – some of which were produced by institutional and political factors affecting the Scottish universities, others by the rising authority of the experimental physical sciences. I consider a selection of Stewart’s writings in the light of this problem. In 1804 Stewart’s own student, Francis Jeffrey, gave public voice to the charge that the science of mind (which constituted the central part of Scottish common sense philosophy) was outdated, unscientific and useless. Thereafter, Stewart was engaged in what he saw as an urgent task – the defence of the very status of philosophy and the role of the philosopher. The thesis considers some of his major works (and other writings) from this perspective: Philosophical Essays (1810) contained his first direct retort to Jeffrey; Stewart’s treatment of methodology in Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Volume 2 (1814) and his section on intellectual character in Volume 3 (1827) are viewed as two significant components of his attempt to reassert the primacy of moral philosophy and the role of the moral philosopher. CONTENTS Page Acknowledgements i Statement of originality ii Abbreviations iii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 Stewart and the Scottish Enlightenment 30 Chapter 3 Authority of moral philosophy 63 Chapter 4 Politicisation of philosophy 88 Chapter 5 The Stewart-Jeffrey debate 117 Chapter 6 Experimental responses 136 Chapter 7 The methodologist 152 Chapter 8 Re-fashioning the moral philosopher 190 Chapter 9 Conclusion 219 Appendix 223 Stewart's Works 225 Primary and Nineteenth-Century Bibliography 228 Secondary Bibliography 238 i Acknowledgements My first thanks must go to my supervisor Associate Professor Richard Yeo for his intellectual generosity and calm guidance. Dr Dieter Freundlieb was painstaking in a final reading and in early engagement with my work on Stewart's methodology, for which I thank him. I also benefited from my association with members of Griffith University's School of Humanities. Thanks also are due to the Australian Government for the generous Australian Postgraduate Award With Stipend which sustained me throughout the course of my studies, to Griffith University for a HECS Scholarship for the duration, and to the Faculty of Arts for a research allowance which assisted me to undertake research in Edinburgh, Canberra and Sydney, and to present a conference paper in Auckland. I am grateful also to the Australasian Association for History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science for a student bursary, which assisted with conference expenses. As well, Griffith's School of Humanities provided me with teaching work, invaluable for both the remuneration and the academic experience. In Edinburgh my research was greatly assisted by knowledgeable staff at Special Collections, Edinburgh University Library, and at the National Library of Scotland. Closer to home, I wish to thank Griffith University Library Staff for their consistently cheerful and competent assistance, and Staff at University of Queensland Library who ensured that Stewart’s volumes were kept current and on the shelves for me. I take this opportunity to acknowledge the special roles played by Dr Patricia Dobrez of the Australian Catholic University and Dr Livio Dobrez of the Australian National University who, in the early days of Bond University, played a major role in stimulating my interest in intellectual life. Final thanks go to my family for their unreserved support of my decision to study for a doctorate, especially my generous son Colby who was materially affected by the decision, to the many friends who continue to enrich my life, and especially to Catherine Gordon for her fierce support and sense of humour. ii Statement of Originality This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself. Signed : . Jennifer Tannoch-Bland iii Abbreviations AUP Aberdeen University Press BAAS British Association for the Advancement of Science CUP Cambridge University Press DNB Dictionary of National Biography ER Edinburgh Review EUL Edinburgh University Library EUP Edinburgh University Press NLS National Library of Scotland OUP Oxford University Press PUP Princeton University Press UCP University of Chicago Press I-XI Vols I – XI of Stewart’s Collected Works (1854-60) 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 2 In histories of the Scottish Enlightenment, Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) is usually portrayed as its dying light, sometimes its ‘last major thinker’, or ‘the most important transmitter of the Scottish Enlightenment to the nineteenth century’ (Howe 1997:51; Oz-Salzberger 1995:107,317). He occupies a place in the line of Scottish philosophers from Francis Hutcheson, Henry Home (Lord Kames), David Hume, Thomas Reid, William Robertson, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson and John Millar to Thomas Brown, Sir William Hamilton and James Ferrier. He is regarded as the ‘populariser’ of common sense philosophy,1 the articulate disciple of Thomas Reid, its founder.2 He is also recognised as the first comprehensive chronicler of European philosophy for a British audience, and the first historian of the Scottish Enlightenment (Corsi 1988; Haakonssen 1994; Wood 1993). Although I am studying Stewart as a major representative of the Scottish common sense school of philosophy, I do not attempt a full biography or intellectual history of his works. My focus is more on Stewart’s perception of the current status of moral philosophy than on his entire intellectual career. The thesis is not an appraisal of his philosophy, or a detailed assesssment of his relationship to Reid’s prior work.3 It aims to offer some explanation for the anomalies that emerge when we read Stewart in light of the standard presentation of him; and, more positively, to seek an intepretation of his published texts that understands them as public acts. One key to understanding Stewart’s work on methodology and his later reflections on intellectual character is that they were written in an attempt to reassert the authority of moral philosophy and to defend the role of the moral philosopher in the light of the growing prestige of the experimental sciences. This opens up the possibility of talking about the public role of the moral philosopher in this period, as embodied in Stewart’s case. Through studying Stewart’s works in particular historical situations, the thesis raises the significance of the challenge to the intellectual authority of moral philosophy from the physical 1 Arthur Kenyon Rogers (1923:12), Norman Daniels (1974:120), Anand C. Chitnis (1976:175) and Bruce Lenman (1981:95) use the term ‘populariser’ in the sense that Stewart reached a wide public and was the chief disseminator of the Scottish common sense philosophy. Neither they nor I claim that he reached a popular, in the sense of mass, or low-brow audience. 2 Selwyn Grave records that ‘the philosophy of common sense became “Scottish philosophy” and schooled several generations of Scotsmen’. Its history in Scotland ‘began at Aberdeen with Thomas Reid’s teaching at King’s College and his papers to the Aberdeen Philosophical Society’. As well, through Victor Cousin’s influence on French education, it became ‘part of the “official” philosophy of France’. It was also established in America, and impressed philosophers of some distinction in Italy and Belgium (Grave 1960:1-10). 3 sciences, and analyses Stewart’s re-affirmation of the cultural role of the moral philosopher in the Scottish context. Eminence, obscurity and influence Stewart held the Chair of Mathematics at Edinburgh University from 1775 to 1785. More importantly, he held the Chair of Moral Philosophy for 25 years from 1785 to 1810. He designed and taught the first separate course in political economy in Britain, at Edinburgh University, from 1800 to 1809. Stewart was known as the most popular lecturer of his day, with students crowding his classes in unprecedented numbers, overflowing into the gallery. He ‘regularly attracted even larger numbers’ than his predecessor in the Chair of Moral Philosophy, Adam Ferguson (Sher 1990:123).4 Through his lectures he influenced a generation of students who were to become men of position in Great Britain, among them the founders of the Edinburgh Review (Fontana 1985; Winch 1983) and others who became influential in London political and social circles. Several pupils left testimonials to the beneficial impact their professor had made on their lives (Bourne & Taylor 1994; Napier 1879).