Lectures in Intellectual History

Thomas Reid, the philosopher and founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense, did not publish much on politics, but his manuscripts reveal that he was deeply concerned with social, political and economic issues throughout his career. In this talk, Knud Haakonssen presents an analysis of Reid’s hitherto unpublished Glasgow lecture notes, and shows that Reid was an acute commentator on contemporary politics and that his theoretical ideas framed solutions to some of the practical political and economic problems of his day.

How does the concept of exile permeate the life and work of the formative political thinker Judith N. Shklar? In this talk, based on research for his forthcoming book entitled 'Exile from Exile', Andreas Hess explores how Shklar's ideas emerged, how her political theory developed, and the impact and legacy she left behind.

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How has the concept of exile permeated the life and work of the political theorist Judith N. Shklar? In this talk, Andreas Hess discusses the subject of his recent book ‘Exile from Exile’.

Why is journal publication so important in the history of science, and how are they responsible for the making of scientific knowledge? In this lecture, Aileen Fyfe reveals the story behind the pages of the oldest scientific journal in existence, the Philosophic Transactions of the Royal Society.

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Why is journal publication so important in the history of science, and how are they responsible for the making of scientific knowledge? In this lecture, Aileen Fyfe reveals the story behind the pages of the oldest scientific journal in existence, the Philosophic Transactions of the Royal Society.

So much has been written about the harm principle central to John Stuart Mill's classic work On Liberty that any attempt to supplement seems superfluous. However, an anomaly in accounts of one aspect of the text requires rectifying. In this lecture, Greg Claeys emphasises the Malthusian context of Mill's treatment of marriage, and argues that in On Liberty Mill regards the family, not the individual, as the foundational unit in society, and the right to bear children as conditional upon the  recognition of the basic duty to maintain them. His Malthusian proposal to restrict this right is the strongest instance of his application of paternalism to adults in a civilised society, but is in Mill's view entirely commensurate with the principle of liberty.

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So much has been written about the harm principle central to John Stuart Mill’s classic work On Liberty that any attempt to supplement seems superfluous. However, an anomaly in accounts of one aspect of the text requires rectifying. In this lecture, Greg Claeys emphasises the Malthusian context of Mill’s treatment of marriage, and argues that in On Liberty Mill regards the family, not the individual, as the foundational unit in society, and the right to bear children as conditional upon the recognition of the basic duty to maintain them. His Malthusian proposal to restrict this right is the strongest instance of his application of paternalism to adults in a civilised society, but is in Mill’s view entirely commensurate with the principle of liberty.

Historians of economics have always been attracted to the political economy of empire because it tells us so much about how serious economic thinking has been shaped by colonial themes. In this lecture, Donald Winch explores this importance of colonies, arguing that whilst the political economy of empire was eventually a theory of capitalist imperialism, it still owed a great deal to those who formulated a case for colonisation as a remedy to some of Britain's problems as a mature economy in the 1820s and 1830s.

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Historians of economics have always been attracted to the political economy of empire because it tells us so much about how serious economic thinking has been shaped by colonial themes. In this lecture, Donald Winch explores this importance of colonies, arguing that whilst the political economy of empire was eventually a theory of capitalist imperialism, it still owed a great deal to those who formulated a case for colonisation as a remedy to some of Britain’s problems as a mature economy in the 1820s and 1830s.

In this inaugural lecture of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews, Professor John Robertson asks how we can explain the concentration of interest, among the moral and political philosophers and historians of the Enlightenment, in the study of the formation and development of societies.

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