James A Harris
Biographic Data
| ID | 3963653 |
|---|---|
| NAME | James A Harris |
| GIVEN NAMES | James A |
| FAMILY NAME | Harris |
| SIGNATURE | HARRIS J A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0333-3754 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 36 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 13 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 31 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 5 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1788 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx
General anxiety, political anxiety, and support for conspiracy theories
Previous research on the underpinnings of support for conspiracy theories has explored the role of both generalized trust and political trust, but scholars have yet to explore whether both generalized and political anxiety are related to support for conspiracy theories. While studies have shown that general measures of anxiety predict support for conspiracy theories, researchers have not yet devoted much attention to understanding whether feeling…
The People in Modern Political Thought: An Outline History
The Multitude, the People, and Popular Sovereignty: Pufendorf and Locke in Reply to Hobbes
In the early iterations of his political thought, The Elements of Law and De Cive , Hobbes proposed a new account of the nature of the people. In Section 2 I describe Pufendorf’s critical response. Pufendorf’s theory of the people is a neglected aspect of the political argument of the De Jure . Just as neglected is Locke’s theory of the people in Two Treatises of Government , though there is better reason for neglect in Locke’s case, in so far as…
Secularised Augustinianism: On Robin Douglass’s Mandeville’s Fable
Poverty as a Political Problem in Late Eighteenth‐Century Britain: Smith, Burke, Malthus
In eighteenth‐century Britain, there was more than one way of thinking about poverty. For some, poverty was an essentially moral problem. Another way of conceiving of poverty was in economic terms. In this article, however, I want to consider some eighteenth‐century versions of the idea that poverty might be a political issue. What I have in mind is the idea that a society containing a large proportion of very poor people might be, just for that …
Of the origin of government: The afterlives of Locke and Filmer in an eighteenth-century British debate
This article describes a debate about the basis of allegiance to government that is obscured from view by the historiographical controversy about whether it is liberalism or republicanism that is the key to understanding eighteenth-century Anglophone political thought. This debate is between those who subscribe, more or less, to the principles of Locke, and those who subscribe, more or less, to the principles of Filmer. Taking the Hanoverian succ…
Being and Freedom: On Late Modern Ethics in Europe
For John Skorupski, as of course for many historians of Western thought, the end of the eighteenth century was a moment of radical transformation. European culture had experienced two dramatic shocks, one political, the French Revolution, and one philosophical, the Kantian revolution. Being and Freedom is a demanding and deeply interesting account of how moral and political philosophy responded to those shocks. It would not be accurate to say tha…
How to write a history of philosophy? The case of eighteenth-century Britain
This paper raises the question of how a history of the philosophy of eighteenth-century Britain should be written. First, it describes the usual answer to this question, which divides the period into what happened before Hume, then Hume, then responses to Hume. It notes that this answer does not correspond well with how the period saw itself. It then considers how ‘philosophy’ is defined in Britain in the eighteenth century, taking into account d…
Phillipson’s Hume in Phillipson's Scottish Enlightenment
The subject of this paper is the place of Hume in Nicholas Phillipson's account of the Scottish Enlightenment. I begin with Phillipson's reading of Hume as ‘civic moralist’. I then turn to his account of Hume the author of The History of England. And from there I proceed to the place of Hume in his intellectual biography of Adam Smith. I conclude with a brief description of Phillipson's understanding of Hume's place in the history of the Scottish…
Essentially political: A review of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas by David Armitage
Peer reviewed
Charles L. Griswold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter
Gordon Graham on the impossibility of history of philosophy
Partisanship and Popular Politics in a Cornish ‘Pocket’ Borough, 1660–1714
Historians have rarely considered the political views of electorates in small constituencies with strong proprietorial interests, or ‘pocket’ boroughs. However, through a detailed case study of the Cornish borough of Mitchell, this article reveals a rural settlement with a multifaceted and divided community, which experienced a high degree of partisan conflict during the later Stuart period as its inhabitants engaged in an ongoing struggle over t…
David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism: Methodology and Ideology in Enlightenment Inquiry
In the Introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume places himself in a nascent tradition of ‘scientists of man’ that includes Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Butler. Tamás Demeter argues in David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism that there is another intellectual context for Hume's philosophy of mind, to be found in the chemistry and physiology developed in Scotland by, among others, Robert Whytt, George Cheyne, W…
Reply to Ainslie, Lemmens and Pettigrove
Reflecting subjects: Passion, sympathy, and society
Istvan Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith
Non peer reviewed
Anguish, Anger and Folkways in Soviet Russia
Toward a Humean True Religion: Genuine Theism, Moderate Hope, and Practical Morality
We will never know what Hume's personal position was with respect to the questions that religion gives answers to. He never declares himself in his letters nor in any other text which might be taken as reporting his own views. The proper object of study when it comes to Hume on religion, then, is what he might have been trying to achieve in writing as he did about the origins of the universe, the history of religion, and the grounds for belief in…
Scottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Volume I: Morals, Politics, Art, Religion
A History of Scottish Philosophy is a series of collaborative studies by expert authors, each volume being devoted to a specific period. Together they provide a comprehensive account of the Scottish philosophical tradition, from the centuries that laid the foundation of the remarkable burst of intellectual fertility known as the Scottish Enlightenment, through the Victorian age and beyond, when it continued to exercise powerful intellectual influ…
The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century
Philosophy in eighteenth-century Britain was diverse, vibrant, and sophisticated. This was the age of Hume and Berkeley and Reid, of Hutcheson and Kames and Smith, of Ferguson and Burke and Wollstonecraft. Important and influential works were published in every area of philosophy, from the theory of vision to theories of political resistance, from the philosophy of language to accounts of ways of governing the passions. The philosophers of eighte…
Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment - Roger Emerson: Book Reviews
Journal Article Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment – Roger Emerson Get access Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment. Roger Emerson, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. Pp. xvii + 295. Price £65.00.) James A. Harris James A. Harris University of St Andrews Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 242, January 2011, Pages 18…
The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man
"The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man" published on by Edinburgh University Press.
Essays on the active powers of man
Religion in Hutcheson’s Moral Philosophy
It is shown that belief in providence and a future state are key components of Hutcheson’s account of moral virtue. Though Hutcheson holds that human beings are naturally virtuous, religion is necessary to give virtuous dispositions support and stability. The aspects of Hutcheson’s moral psychology which lead him to this conclusion are spelled out in detail. It is argued that religion and virtue are connected in this way in both the Dublin writin…
Introduction: The Place of the Ancients in the Moral Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment
Partisanship and Popular Politics in a Cornish ‘Pocket’ Borough, 1660–1714
Historians have rarely considered the political views of electorates in small constituencies with strong proprietorial interests, or ‘pocket’ boroughs. However, through a detailed case study of the Cornish borough of Mitchell, this article reveals a rural settlement with a multifaceted and divided community, which experienced a high degree of partisan conflict during the later Stuart period as its inhabitants engaged in an ongoing struggle over t…
Istvan Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith
Non peer reviewed
Essays on the Active Powers of Man
Preface Editors' Introduction Note on the text Mode of reference Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man: Contents: Introduction Essay I Of Active Power in General Essay II Of the Will Essay III Of the Principles of Action Essay IV Of the Liberty of Moral Agents Essay V Of Morals Bibliography Index of Names General Index.
Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy
This book presents the first detailed account of the discussion of the free will problem in British philosophy in the ‘long’ eighteenth century, beginning with Locke and ending with Dugald Stewart. In this period, the question of the nature of human freedom is posed principally in terms of the influence of motives upon the will. On the libertarian side of the debate are those who believe we are free in our choices. A motive, these philosophers ho…
Sketches of the History of Man (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics)
Editing Hume's Treatise
In 1975 the Clarendon Press at Oxford published Peter Nidditch's edition of John Locke's An Essay concerning Human Understanding . In his Introduction Nidditch says that his edition “offers a text that is directly derived, without modernization, from the early published versions; it notes the provenance of all its adopted readings (some of which are new, correcting long-established errors); and it aims at recording all relevant differences betwee…
Religion in Hutcheson’s Moral Philosophy
It is shown that belief in providence and a future state are key components of Hutcheson’s account of moral virtue. Though Hutcheson holds that human beings are naturally virtuous, religion is necessary to give virtuous dispositions support and stability. The aspects of Hutcheson’s moral psychology which lead him to this conclusion are spelled out in detail. It is argued that religion and virtue are connected in this way in both the Dublin writin…
Hobbes, Bramhall and the Politics of Liberty and Necessity A Quarrel of the Civil War and Interregnum
Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception
Book Review| January 01 2009 Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception Ryan Nichols, Thomas Reid's Theory of Perception. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007. xvi + 301 pp. James A. Harris James A. Harris Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google The Philosophical Review (2009) 118 (1): 112–115. https://doi.org/10.1215/00318108-2008-033 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Permissions Search Site Citation James A. H…
David Hume: Moral and Political Theorist - Russell Hardin
Russell Hardin's book is really about Hume's political philosophy. This is not surprising in the light of his view that Hume does not in fact have a moral philosophy. What Hume does have, according to Hardin, is a moral psychology. Hume's account of morals ‘does not tell us what is right or wrong, good or bad. It explains moral views; it does not justify them or even argue for them beyond fitting them to the actual psychology of people’ (p. 28). …
The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man
"The Edinburgh Edition of Thomas Reid: Essays on the Active Powers of Man" published on by Edinburgh University Press.
Essays on the active powers of man
Hume on the Moral Obligation to Justice
There is a prominent place in recent work on Hume's moral philosophy for the idea that Hume is best placed in the tradition of virtue ethics. I argue in this paper that Hume's theory of justice cannot be given a virtue-theoretic construal. I argue that Hume should rather be placed in the tradition of theorizing about justice inaugurated by Grotius. In this tradition, the moral obligation to justice is spelled out in terms of the necessity of resp…
Thomas Reid - Essays on the Active Powers of Man
Introduction: The Place of the Ancients in the Moral Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment
Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment - Roger Emerson: Book Reviews
Journal Article Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment – Roger Emerson Get access Essays on David Hume, Medical Men and the Scottish Enlightenment. Roger Emerson, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009. Pp. xvii + 295. Price £65.00.) James A. Harris James A. Harris University of St Andrews Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Philosophical Quarterly, Volume 61, Issue 242, January 2011, Pages 18…
The Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century
Philosophy in eighteenth-century Britain was diverse, vibrant, and sophisticated. This was the age of Hume and Berkeley and Reid, of Hutcheson and Kames and Smith, of Ferguson and Burke and Wollstonecraft. Important and influential works were published in every area of philosophy, from the theory of vision to theories of political resistance, from the philosophy of language to accounts of ways of governing the passions. The philosophers of eighte…
Scottish Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, Volume I: Morals, Politics, Art, Religion
A History of Scottish Philosophy is a series of collaborative studies by expert authors, each volume being devoted to a specific period. Together they provide a comprehensive account of the Scottish philosophical tradition, from the centuries that laid the foundation of the remarkable burst of intellectual fertility known as the Scottish Enlightenment, through the Victorian age and beyond, when it continued to exercise powerful intellectual influ…
Reflecting subjects: Passion, sympathy, and society
Istvan Hont, Politics in Commercial Society: Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith
Non peer reviewed
Anguish, Anger and Folkways in Soviet Russia
Toward a Humean True Religion: Genuine Theism, Moderate Hope, and Practical Morality
We will never know what Hume's personal position was with respect to the questions that religion gives answers to. He never declares himself in his letters nor in any other text which might be taken as reporting his own views. The proper object of study when it comes to Hume on religion, then, is what he might have been trying to achieve in writing as he did about the origins of the universe, the history of religion, and the grounds for belief in…
Reply to Ainslie, Lemmens and Pettigrove
Partisanship and Popular Politics in a Cornish ‘Pocket’ Borough, 1660–1714
Historians have rarely considered the political views of electorates in small constituencies with strong proprietorial interests, or ‘pocket’ boroughs. However, through a detailed case study of the Cornish borough of Mitchell, this article reveals a rural settlement with a multifaceted and divided community, which experienced a high degree of partisan conflict during the later Stuart period as its inhabitants engaged in an ongoing struggle over t…
David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism: Methodology and Ideology in Enlightenment Inquiry
In the Introduction to A Treatise of Human Nature, Hume places himself in a nascent tradition of ‘scientists of man’ that includes Locke, Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Hutcheson, and Butler. Tamás Demeter argues in David Hume and the Culture of Scottish Newtonianism that there is another intellectual context for Hume's philosophy of mind, to be found in the chemistry and physiology developed in Scotland by, among others, Robert Whytt, George Cheyne, W…
Essentially political: A review of Civil Wars: A History in Ideas by David Armitage
Peer reviewed
Charles L. Griswold, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith: A Philosophical Encounter
Philosophy (28 works) · Epistemology (20 works) · Law (19 works) · Politics (17 works) · Political science (16 works) · History (14 works) · Philosophy (13 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Classics (8 works) · Seventeenth-Century Political and Philosophical Thought (8 works)