James Wilson’s Reidian Alternative to John Locke
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13044595 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Ferkaluk (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 165-188 |
| Publication date | 2024-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Political Thought (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2161-1580 • E-ISSN: 2161-1599 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/729566 |
| OpenAlex | W4394895432 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 20 |
Scholarship on the American founding generally argues for a Lockean liberal republicanism as the philosophical base for American political institutions. But American founding father James Wilson rejected Locke’s epistemology and moral science in favor of Thomas Reid’s as a theoretical support for popular sovereignty in a large republic. This article offers a new interpretation of Wilson’s writings by directly juxtaposing his and Locke’s epistemology and moral science. A close and comparative reading of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Wilson’s Lectures on Law demonstrates that Wilson thinks that American political culture needed to include support for universal suffrage, understanding government’s end as promoting individual happiness found in pursuing virtue rather than property, and that all citizens are responsible for the truthful reputation of being a virtuous person. Wilson uses Reid’s epistemology and moral science to offer a cultural support for popular sovereignty that acts as an alternative to Lockean self-interest
Classical liberalism · Epistemology · Liberalism · Political science · Politics · Popular sovereignty · Scholarship · Scientism · Sociology · Sovereignty · Virtue · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Political Theory and Influence
A Discourse on Property
An Essay concerning Human Understanding
Essays on the Active Powers of Man
Reason, Revelation, and the Law of Nature in James Wilson’s Lectures on Law
James Wilson’s Science of Politics and the Moral Psychology of American Constitutionalism
Metaphor and Imagination in James Wilson's Theory of Federal Union
The myth of ‘British empiricism’
Mixed Modes” in John Locke's Moral and Political Philosophy
Locke's Case for Religious Toleration
Rethinking America's Modernity
The Language of Liberty and Law
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |