Adam Ferguson
Adam Ferguson | |
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Institutions | University of Edinburgh |
Main interests | Sociology, political philosophy, ethics, history |
Adam Ferguson,
Ferguson was sympathetic to traditional societies, such as the Highlands, for producing courage and loyalty. He criticized commercial society as making men weak, dishonourable and unconcerned for their community. Ferguson has been called "the father of modern sociology" for his contributions to the early development of the discipline.[2][3] His best-known work is his Essay on the History of Civil Society.
Biography
Born at
It remains a matter of debate as to whether, at the Battle of Fontenoy (1745), Ferguson fought in the ranks throughout the day, and refused to leave the field, though ordered to do so by his colonel. Nevertheless, he certainly did well, becoming principal chaplain in 1746. He continued attached to the regiment till 1754, when, disappointed at not obtaining a living, he left the clergy and resolved to devote himself to literary pursuits.
After residing in
In 1767, he published his
In 1776, appeared his anonymous pamphlet on the
In 1780, he wrote the article "History" for the second edition of Encyclopædia Britannica.[6] The article is 40 pages long and replaced the article in the first edition, which was only one paragraph.
In 1783, appeared his
In his seventieth year, Ferguson, intending to prepare a new edition of the history, visited
Ethics
In his
We find in his method the wisdom and circumspection of the Scottish school, with something more masculine and decisive in the results. The principle of perfection is a new one, at once more rational and comprehensive than benevolence and sympathy, which in our view places Ferguson as a moralist above all his predecessors.
By this principle Ferguson attempted to reconcile all moral systems.[citation needed] With Thomas Hobbes and Hume he admits the power of self-interest or utility, and makes it enter into morals as the law of self-preservation. Francis Hutcheson's theory of universal benevolence and Adam Smith's idea of mutual sympathy (now empathy) he combines under the law of society. But, as these laws appear as the means rather than the end of human destiny, they remain subordinate to a supreme end, and the supreme end of perfection.[citation needed]
In the political part of his system Ferguson follows
Social thought
Ferguson's An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767) drew on classical authors and contemporary travel literature, to analyze modern commercial society with a critique of its abandonment of civic and communal virtues. Central themes in Ferguson's theory of citizenship are conflict, play, political participation and military valor. He emphasized the ability to put oneself in another's shoes, saying "fellow-feeling" was so much an "appurtenance of human nature" as to be a "characteristic of the species." Like his friends Adam Smith and David Hume as well as other Scottish intellectuals, he stressed the importance of the spontaneous order; that is, that coherent and even effective outcomes might result from the uncoordinated actions of many individuals.
Ferguson saw history as a two-tiered synthesis of natural history and social history, to which all humans belong. Natural history is created by
Ferguson was a leading advocate of the
Ferguson was influenced by classical humanism and such writers as Tacitus, Niccolò Machiavelli, and Thomas Hobbes. The fellow members of Edinburgh's Select Society, which included David Hume and Adam Smith, were also major influences. Ferguson believed that civilization is largely about laws that restrict our independence as individuals but provide liberty in the sense of security and justice. He warned that social chaos usually leads to despotism. The members of civil society give up their liberty-as-autonomy, which savages possess, in exchange for liberty-as-security, or civil liberty. Montesquieu used a similar argument.[8]
Smith emphasized
The Essay has been seen as an innovative attempt to reclaim the tradition of
Personal life
He married Katherine Burnett in 1767.[11] Ferguson was first cousin, close friend and colleague to Joseph Black M.D and Katie Burnett was Black's niece.[12] They produced seven children the eldest Adam Ferguson (British Army officer) close friend to Sir Walter Scott, followed by James, Joseph, John, Isabella, Mary and Margaret.[13] John (John MacPherson Ferguson) was a Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy.[14]
Ferguson suffered an attack of paralysis in 1780 but fully recovered and became a vegetarian for the rest of his life.[15][16] Ferguson also abstained from alcoholic drink. He did not dine out unless with his first cousin and great friend Joseph Black.[17]
Main works
- An Essay on the History of Civil Society (1767)
- Reprinted in 1995 with a new introduction by Louis Schneider. Transaction Publishers, London, 1995.
- The History of the Progress and Termination of the Roman Republic (1783)
- Principles of Moral and Political Science; being chiefly a retrospect of lectures delivered in the College of Edinburgh (1792)[5]: xxviii
- Institutes of Moral Philosophy (1769)
- Reflections Previous to the Establishment of a Militia (1756)[18]
References
- ^ Selections from the Scottish Philosophy of Common Sense, ed. by G. A. Johnston (1915), essays by Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, James Beattie, and Dugald Stewart (online version).
- S2CID 143916665.
- ISBN 0669244597.)
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link - ISBN 978-0902198845. Archived from the original(PDF) on 4 October 2006. Retrieved 29 September 2010.
- ^ ISBN 0521447364.
- ^ "Adam Ferguson | Scottish philosopher". Britannica.com. 16 June 2023.
- ^ S2CID 246985898.
- ^ a b c d Kettler, The Social and Political Thought of Adam Ferguson (1965)
- ^ a b Herman, A., The Scottish Enlightenment, Harper Perennial
- ^ Hill (1997)
- ISBN 090219884X. Archived from the original(PDF) on 24 January 2013. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
- ^ Records of the Clan and Name Ferguson 1895 p. 138 note. 1
- ^ Records of the clan and name of Fergusson by D Douglas 1895 p. 144
- ^ Burkes peerage
- ^ James Ferguson. (1905). The Ferguson Family: In Scotland and America. The Times Presses. p. 28
- ISBN 0521447364
- ^ Johnson, Edgar. (1970). Sir Walter Scott: 1771–1821. Hamish Hamilton. p. 61
- ^ Hamowy, Ronald (2006). Scottish Thought and the American Revolution: Adam Ferguson's Response to Richard Price. (David Womersely, ed., Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century). Liberty Fund. pp. Chapter. Retrieved 14 September 2011.
- public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ferguson, Adam". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 271. This article incorporates text from a publication now in the
Sources
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cousin, John William (1910). A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature. London: J. M. Dent & Sons – via Wikisource.
- Articles in Dictionary of National Biography
- OCLC 750831024.
- OCLC 22572105.
- Hill, Lisa. "Adam Ferguson and the Paradox of Progress and Decline," History of Political Thought 1997 18(4): 677–706
- Kettler, David Adam Ferguson: His Social and Political Thought. New Brunswick: Transaction, 2005.
- McDaniel, Iain. Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Roman Past and Europe's Future (Harvard University Press; 2013) 276 pages
- McCosh, James, The Scottish philosophy, biographical, expository, critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (1875)
- Oz-Salzberger, Fania. "Introduction" in Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, edited by F. Oz-Salzberger, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995
- Oz-Salzberger, Fania. Translating the Enlightenment: Scottish Civic Discourse in Eighteenth-Century Germany, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995)
- Vileisis, Danga: Der unbekannte Beitrag Adam Fergusons zum materialistischen Geschichtsverständnis von ISBN 978-3886196692
- "Adam Ferguson" Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy 1998
- Waszek, Norbert & Hauck, Eveline. "”In the human kind, the species has a progress as well as the individual”: Adam Ferguson on the progress of “mankind”", in: Humankind and Humanity in the Philosophy of the Enlightenment, ed. by Stefanie Buchenau & Ansgar Lyssy, London, Bloomsbury, 2023, p. 115-130.
Further reading
- Broadie, Alexander, ed. The Scottish Enlightenment: An Anthology (2001).
- Reconsidering the Highland roots of Adam Ferguson by Denise Testa 2007.