Lectures in Intellectual History

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.

According to Reinhart Koselleck, the eighteenth century witnessed the gradual and permanent separation of concepts of "civil war" and "revolution". Placing these ideas in a longer perspective – a longue durée that goes back to republican Rome and comes forward to our own times – challenges this narrative by showing that civil war was the genus of which revolution was only a species. This argument presented by David Armitage can help us to rethink the late eighteenth-century "Age of Revolutions"; it can also explain the confusion as we attempt to understand political violence in places like Egypt and Syria today.

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According to Reinhart Koselleck, the eighteenth century witnessed the gradual and permanent separation of concepts of "civil war" and "revolution". Placing these ideas in a longer perspective – a longue durée that goes back to republican Rome and comes forward to our own times – challenges this narrative by showing that civil war was the genus of which revolution was only a species. This argument presented by David Armitage can help us to rethink the late eighteenth-century "Age of Revolutions"; it can also explain the confusion as we attempt to understand political violence in places like Egypt and Syria today.

2013 sees the centenary of the birth of Douglas Young, one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century Scottish nationalism. Leader of the SNP from 1942 to the end of the Second World War, Young was imprisoned twice for refusing conscription – both military and industrial. He was also an eminent classicist, who translated some of the plays of Aristophanes into Lallans (Lowland Scots). In this lecture, Colin Kidd investigates Young's chequered career, and examine the broader context of the curious Scottish nationalist response to the world crisis of the 1940s.

Get full access to Institute of Intellectual History at standrewsiih.substack.com/subscribe

2013 sees the centenary of the birth of Douglas Young, one of the most influential figures in twentieth-century Scottish nationalism. Leader of the SNP from 1942 to the end of the Second World War, Young was imprisoned twice for refusing conscription – both military and industrial. He was also an eminent classicist, who translated some of the plays of Aristophanes into Lallans (Lowland Scots). In this lecture, Colin Kidd investigates Young’s chequered career, and examine the broader context of the curious Scottish nationalist response to the world crisis of the 1940s.

Ideas of historical distance have long been fundamental to Western conceptions of historical knowledge. In practice, however, distance seems to have dwindled into little more than a professional shibboleth - a way of defending the historian's labours against the simplifications of popular journalism or the shortcuts of the guided tour. In common usage, historical distance refers to a position of detached observation made possible by the passage of time, but the standard conception narrows the idea of distance and burdens it with a regulatory purpose. In this lecture, Mark Salber Philips argues that distance needs to be re-conceived in terms of the wider set of engagements that mediate our relations to the past, as well as the full spectrum of distance-positions from near to far. Re-imagined in these terms, distance sheds its prescriptiveness and becomes a valuable heuristic for examining the range and variability of historical representation.

Get full access to Institute of Intellectual History at standrewsiih.substack.com/subscribe

Ideas of historical distance have long been fundamental to Western conceptions of historical knowledge. In practice, however, distance seems to have dwindled into little more than a professional shibboleth - a way of defending the historian’s labours against the simplifications of popular journalism or the shortcuts of the guided tour. In common usage, historical distance refers to a position of detached observation made possible by the passage of time, but the standard conception narrows the idea of distance and burdens it with a regulatory purpose. In this lecture, Mark Salber Philips argues that distance needs to be re-conceived in terms of the wider set of engagements that mediate our relations to the past, as well as the full spectrum of distance-positions from near to far. Re-imagined in these terms, distance sheds its prescriptiveness and becomes a valuable heuristic for examining the range and variability of historical representation.

One of the great surprises of modern thought is the survival of democracy. Today the victory of democracy continues to be associated with the American and French Revolutions. But democracy was for the most part castigated by reformers and revolutionaries across Europe during the enlightenment era. Attempts to apply democratic ideas universally were generally ridiculed. In this lecture, Richard Whatmore argues that the challenge faced by advocates of democracy was to make the theory compatible with larger forms of state; in short, to turn a democracy into a stable empire.

Get full access to Institute of Intellectual History at standrewsiih.substack.com/subscribe

One of the great surprises of modern thought is the survival of democracy. Today the victory of democracy continues to be associated with the American and French Revolutions. But democracy was for the most part castigated by reformers and revolutionaries across Europe during the enlightenment era. Attempts to apply democratic ideas universally were generally ridiculed. In this lecture, Richard Whatmore argues that the challenge faced by advocates of democracy was to make the theory compatible with larger forms of state; in short, to turn a democracy into a stable empire.

Over the quarter of a millennium from the later seventeenth century to the Great War, the phrase 'civil and religious liberty' was a pervasive feature of English political language. How and why had the phrase come into being? In 1600 it would have been unintelligible. The alliance of religious with civil liberty became possible only when religious liberty acquired a new meaning and became something like a human right. In this lecture, Blair Worden argues that its emergence has two claims on our attention. It betokened a new conception of the relationship between God and society. And it demonstrates the capacity of political events, and of pressures of political power, to shape developments in intellectual history.

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