Abstract
Kames’s general philosophy, that is, his view of man, society and the world about him — as distinguished from his thinking on such more specific matters as law, literary criticism, politics and religion, which will engage us in later chapters — and any contributions he may have made to thinking on such matters, must be viewed against the background of the tendencies and developments in philosophy generally in the Scotland of his day.1
All art is founded on science and [that] science is of little value which does not serve as a foundation to some beneficial art. (George Campbell)
...in all disputes we find the parties each of them equally appealing constantly to the common sense of mankind as the ultimate rule or standard. (Kames)
Man is an active [more than] a contemplative being: action [therefore] ought to be the object of all our inquiries; without which morality as well as metaphysical reasoning are but empty speculation. (Kames)
Indulge your passion for science says [nature], but let your science be human and such as may have a direct reference to action and society. (David Hume)
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References
Kames’s place in the history of Scottish philosophy, and of philosophy generally, is clearly recognized by James McCosh, Scottish Philosophy: Biographical, Expository and Critical (London, 1875), Ch. XXII (pp. 173–82), and by Henry Laurie, Scottish Philosophy in its National Development (Glasgow, 1902), Ch. V (pp. 95–107). It is also noted, briefly and somewhat critically, by Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie (7th and 8th eds.; Leipzig, 1922), vol. I, p. 358, and more extensively in Ersch and Gruber, Allgemeine Encyklopaedie,Section II, vol. 32, pp. 213f. See also Gordon McKenzie, Lord Kames and the Mechanist Tradition (University of California Publications in English, Essays and Studies), vol. XIV, pp. 93–121.
Hume’s essay, “On the Different Species of Philosophy.”
Henry Thomas Buckle, History of Civilization in England (4 vol. ed.: New York, 1913), vol. II, pt. II, pp. 433–35, 452–63, and entire Ch. VI.
George Campbell, Philosophy of Rhetoric,eds. Bitzer and Potter (Southern Illinois University Press, 1963), p. 1 i. (Work first published in 1776.)
See also P. Hume Brown’s Surveys, pp. 118 and 135 and his History of Scotland (3 vol. ed; Cambridge, 1911 ), vol. III, pp. 297f.
The same, Dissertation on Miracles (Edinburgh, 1762).
Goethe, Sämtliche Werke (Jubiläumsausgabe; Stuttgart, 1902), vol. 38, p. 382.
Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion (1st. ed.; Edinburgh, 1751), p. 379. This edition is used below if not otherwise indicated. For a critical analysis of this work see A. E. McGuinness, Henry Home, Lord Kames (New York, 1970), ch. II.
Ibid., p. 143. Cf. Sketches, IV, 49f.
Ibid.,pp. 340ff. See also Kames, Elements of Criticism (3rd. 1-vol. ed.; New York, 1836), pp. 31f.
PMNR (3rd. ed.), p. 113.
Elements,p. 176 and Br. Antiq.,p. 193; also HLT,pp. 80f.
PMNR,pp. 40f. and 3rd. ed., p. 28; also Sketches,II, 173. 19 PMNR (3rd. ed.), p. 139.
Elements,p. 235.
PMNR,p. 25; cf. 3rd ed., pp. 12–17.
Ibid. (3rd. ed.), p. 112. See also LHE,pp. 257–61.
See for example, Sketches I, 79n., and IV, 52; also Elements,p. 164.
LHE,pp. 266 and 270.
Elements,pp. 82f.
Ibid.,pp. 83 and 88.
Ibid.,p. 87; see also p. 239.
Sketches,I, 320; also 338.
Ibid.,IV 5; also Boswell, XV, 267.
Edinburgh Philosophical Society, Essays and Observations,vol. I, Article 1, pp. 1–3. (Text that of 1774 ed.). See also supra, p. 59.
Thomson, op. cit., p. 85. See also supra,pp. 83f. and note 6.
From the Prayer at the end of the Principles of Morality,reproduced infra,App. IV.
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Lehmann, W.C. (1971). Common-Sense Philosopher and Observer of the Ways of Men. In: Henry Home, Lord Kames and the Scottish Enlightenment. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1765-6_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1765-6_11
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