John Major (philosopher)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people named John Major, see John Major (disambiguation).

John Mair in a contemporary woodcut.

John Major (or Mair; also known in

logical approach to the study of texts such as Aristotle or the Bible were less prized in the subsequent age of humanism
, when a more committed and linguistic/literary approach prevailed.

His influence in

infinitesimals), politics (placing the people over kings), Church (councils over Popes), and international law (establishing the human rights of "savages" conquered by the Spanish) can be traced across the centuries and appear decidedly modern, and it is only in the modern age that he is not routinely dismissed as a scholastic. His Latin style did not help – he thought that "it is of more moment to understand aright, and clearly to lay down the truth of any matter than to use eloquent language". Nevertheless, it is to his writings, including their dedications, that we owe much of our knowledge of the everyday facts of Major's life – for example his "shortness of stature". He was an extremely curious and very observant man, and used his experiences – of earthquakes in Paisley, thunder in Glasgow
, storms at sea, eating oatcakes in northern England – to illustrate the more abstract parts of his logical writings.

Life

School

John Major (or 'Mair') was born about 1467 at Gleghornie, East Lothian near

Sauchieburn
which was in 1488.

However, it was in 1490, he reports, that he "first left the paternal hearth". In 1490, probably under the influence of Robert Cockburn, another Haddington man, destined to be an influential bishop (of Ross and later of Dunkeld), he decided to go to Paris to study among the great numbers of Scots there at the time.

University

It is not known whether he attended university in Scotland as a student – there are no matriculation records of him and he claimed never to have seen the university town of

St Andrews, Fife as a young man (though he did complain later of its bad beer). He seems to have decided to prepare for Paris at Cambridge in England. He says that in 1492 he attended "Gods House", which later became Christ's College.[1]
He remembers the bells – "on great feast days, I spent half the night listening to them" – but was obviously well-prepared, as he left for Paris after three terms.

In 1493 he matriculated in the

Bachelor of Sacred Theology and in 1505 his logical writings were collected and published for the first time. In 1506 he was licensed to teach theology and was awarded the degree of Doctor of Sacred Theology on 11 November that year (coming 3rd in the listings). He taught at the Collège de Montaigu (where he was, temporarily joint Director) and also the prestigious Sorbonne
, where he served on many commissions.

Later career

In 1510 he discussed the moral and legal questions arising from the

humanists think futile, are like a ladder for the intelligence to rise towards the Bible" (which he elsewhere, perhaps unwisely called "the easier parts of theology"). Nevertheless, in 1512, like a good humanist, he learned Greek from Girolamo Aleandro
(who re-introduced the study of Greek to Paris) who wrote "Many scholastics are to be found in France who are keen students in different kinds of knowledge and several of these are among my faithful hearers, such as John Mair, Doctor of Philosophy..."

In 1518 he returned to Scotland to become

Cardinal Wolsey. He offered Major a post, which he declined, in his new college at the University of Oxford, to be called Cardinal's College, (later Christ Church, Oxford). In 1528, King Francis I of France
issued Major with a patent of naturalisation, making him a naturalised subject of France.

In 1533 he was made Provost of

St Salvator's College in the University of St Andrews – to which thronged many of the most significant men in Scotland, including John Knox and George Buchanan. He missed Paris – "When I was in Scotland, I often thought how I would go back to Paris and give lectures as I used to and hear disputations". He died in 1550 (perhaps on 1 May), his works read throughout Europe, his name honoured everywhere, just as the storms of the Reformation
were about to sweep away, at least in his own country, any respect for his centuries-old methodology.

Some publications by John Major

Influence

Historians

His De Gestis Scotorum (Paris, 1521) was partly a patriotic attempt to raise the profile of his native country, but was also an attempt to clear away myth and fable, basing his history on evidence. In this, he was following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the

Scots Andrew wrote for his aristocratic Scots patrons. Although the documentary evidence available to Major was limited, his scholarly approach was adopted and improved by later historians of Scotland, including his pupil Hector Boece, and John Lesley
.

Calvin and Loyola

In 1506 he was awarded a doctorate in theology by Paris where he began to teach and progress through the hierarchy, becoming for a brief period

logician and philosopher. He is reported to have been a very clear and forceful lecturer, attracting students from all over Europe. In contrast, he had a rather dry, some said 'barbaric', written Latin style. He was referred to by Pierre Bayle as writing "in stylo Sorbonico", not meaning this as a compliment. His interests ranged across the burning issues of the day. His approach largely followed Nominalism which was in tune with the growing emphasis on the absolutely unconstrained nature of God, which in turn emphasised his grace and the importance of individual belief and submission. His humanist approach was in tune with the return to the texts in the original languages of the Scriptures and classical authors. He emphasised that authority lay with the whole church and not with the Pope. Similarly, he asserted that authority in a kingdom lay not with the king but with the people, who could retake their power from a delinquent king (a striking echo of the ringing Declaration of Arbroath
1320 confirming to the Pope the independence of the Scottish crown from that of England). It is not surprising that he emphasised the natural freedom of human beings.

His influence extended through enthusiastic pupils to the leading thinkers of the day but most obviously to a group of Spanish thinkers, including Antonio Coronel, who taught John Calvin and very probably Ignatius of Loyola.

In 1522, at

Thomist) philosophers was a brilliant flowering of thought until the early parts of the seventeenth century. It included Francisco de Vitoria, Cano, de Domingo de Soto and Bartolomé de Medina
, each one thorough soaked in Mairian enthusiasms.

Knox

Major wrote in his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard "Our native soil attracts us with a secret and inexpressible sweetness and does not permit us to forget it". He returned to Scotland in 1518. Given his success and experience in Paris, it is no surprise that he became the Principal of the University of Glasgow. In 1523 left for the University of St Andrews where he was assessor to the Dean of Arts. In 1525 he went again to Paris from where he returned in 1531 eventually to become Provost of St Salvator's College, St Andrews until his death in 1550, aged about eighty three.

One of his most notable students was

Schoolmen
.

Empiricism

Major and his circle were interested in the structures of

Reformation
– explain in some part why this influence is still somewhat occluded.

Human rights

More obviously influential was his

human rights law.[2]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Major, John (MJR492J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. ^ Mauricio Beuchot; "El primer planteamiento teologico-politico-juridico sobre la conquista de América: John Mair", La ciencia tomista 103 (1976), 213–230;

References

Further reading

  • "Heinrich Totting von Oyta" (in German)
  • Wallace, W A Prelude to Galileo – essays on medieval and sixteenth-century sources of Galileo's thought. (Page 64 et seq) Springer Science and Business Dordrecht, Holland 1981 [1]
  • Alexander Broadie, "John Mair," The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500–1660, Second Series, Detroit: Gale, 2003, pp. 178–187.
  • John Durkan, "John Major: After 400 Years," Innes Review, vol. 1, 1950, pp. 131–139.
  • Ricardo García Villoslada, "Un teologo olvidado: Juan Mair", Estudios eclesiásticos 15 (1936), 83–118;
  • Ricardo García Villoslada, La Universidad de París durante los estudios de Francisco de Vitoria (1507–1522) (Roma, 1938), 127–164;
  • J.H. Burns, "New Light on John Major", Innes Review 5 (1954), 83–100;
  • T.F. Torrance, "La philosophie et la théologie de Jean Mair ou Major, de Haddington (1469–1550)", Archives de philosophie 32 (1969), 531–576;
  • Mauricio Beuchot, "El primer planteamiento teologico-politico-juridico sobre la conquista de América: John Mair", La ciencia tomista 103 (1976), 213–230;
  • Joël Biard, "La logique de l'infini chez Jean Mair", Les Etudes philosophiques 1986, 329–348; & Joël Biard, "La toute-puissance divine dans le Commentaire des Sentences de Jean Mair", in Potentia Dei. L'onnipotenza divina nel pensiero dei secoli XVI e XVII, ed. Guido Canziani / Miguel A. Granada / Yves Charles Zarka (Milano, 2000), 25–41.
  • John T. Slotemaker and Jeffrey C. Witt (2015), edd., A Companion to the Theology of John Mair, Boston: Brill.

External links

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