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THE PHILLIPSONIAN ENLIGHTENMENT

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2014

COLIN KIDD
COLIN KIDD*
Affiliation:
School of History, University of St Andrews E-mail: cck3@st-andrews.ac.uk
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Extract

A founding editor of Modern Intellectual History (MIH), an acclaimed biographer of Adam Smith and a prolific essayist on all aspects of the Scottish Enlightenment, from its origins to its aftermath, Nicholas Phillipson needs little introduction to the readers of this journal. However, Phillipson's recent retirement from his editorial duties on MIH provides a suitable moment to celebrate one of the pioneers in our field. When the current editors set out to commission a historiographical overview of Phillipson's oeuvre and career, I was honoured to be asked and delighted to accept.

Type
Essays
Information
Modern Intellectual History , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , April 2014 , pp. 175 - 190
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

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17 Cf. Phillipson, “Smith as Civic Moralist”.

18 This pioneering thesis was eventually published—unrevised—under the auspices of Scotland's learned society in the field of legal history: Phillipson, The Scottish Whigs and the Reform of the Court of Session 1785–1830, Stair Society 37 (Edinburgh, 1990).

19 Cf. Phillipson, , “Propriety, Property and Prudence: David Hume and the Defence of the Revolution”, in Phillipson, and Skinner, Q. R. D., eds., Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge, 1993), 302–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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21 There were, of course, other influences, not least the social fact of being simultaneously welcome insider and keenly observant outsider in Scottish life. Although English by background, Phillipson had been largely educated in Aberdeen, at Aberdeen Grammar School and then Aberdeen University, before going to Cambridge. Phillipson's father, Andrew Phillipson (1910–77), an eminent veterinary physiologist and leading authority on ruminants, had been appointed from Cambridge to head the Department of Physiology at the Rowett Research Institute at Aberdeen. For the ODNB article on Andrew Phillipson, see www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31545. Phillipson's first undergraduate degree at Aberdeen (1954–8) was in history and politics; here he came under the influence of a pioneering figure in the study of political and legal thought, the late J. H. “Jimmy” Burns (1921–2012). Phillipson also had a further period as an undergraduate at St Catharine's College, Cambridge (1958–60), and undertook National Service in the Royal Air Force (1960–62) flying Chipmunks—akin, perhaps, to Gibbon's time in the Hampshire militia—before embarking on doctoral research.

22 Phillipson, “Definition”, 125.

23 Carter, J. and Pittock, J., eds., Aberdeen and the Enlightenment (Aberdeen, 1987)Google Scholar; Hook, A. and Sher, R., eds., The Glasgow Enlightenment (East Linton, 1995)Google Scholar.

24 Phillipson, , “The Pursuit of Virtue in Scottish University Education: Dugald Stewart and Scottish Moral Philosophy in the Enlightenment”, in Phillipson, , ed., Universities, Society and the Future (Edinburgh, 1983), 82–101, 92Google Scholar.

25 Phillipson, “Definition”, 145.

26 Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 416.

27 Ibid., 417.

28 Ibid., 437.

29 Phillipson, “Hume as Moralist”, 144.

30 Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 437.

31 Phillipson, “Hume as Moralist”, 140.

32 Phillipson, , “Politics, Politeness and the Anglicisation of Early Eighteenth-Century Scottish Culture”, in Mason, R. A., ed., Scotland and England 1286–1815 (Edinburgh, 1987), 226–46Google Scholar.

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34 Phillipson, “Definition”, 138; Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 447.

35 Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 448.

36 Ibid., 442.

37 Ibid., 448.

38 Ibid., 432.

39 Phillipson, “Beattie”, 147.

40 Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 443.

41 Phillipson, “Beattie”, 148.

42 Phillipson, “Defintion”, 142.

43 Ibid., 136.

44 Phillipson, “Beattie”, 148.

45 Phillipson, “Pursuit of Virtue”, 97.

46 Ibid., 99.

47 See esp. Phillipson, “The Export of Enlightenment”, Times Literary Supplement, 2 July 1976, 823–4.

48 Phillpson, “Definition”, 147.

49 Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 424.

50 Phillipson, “Politeness and Politics”; Phillipson, “Providence and Progress: An Introduction to the Historical Thought of Robertson, William”, in Brown, S. J., ed., William Robertson and the Expansion of Empire (Cambridge, 1997), 55–73Google Scholar.

51 See also Phillipson, , “Scott as Story-Teller: An Essay in Psychobiography”, in Bell, A. S., ed., Scott Bicentenary Essays (Edinburgh and London, 1973), 87–100Google Scholar.

52 Erikson and his theories are now themselves being contextualized; see Friedman, L., Identity's Architect: A Biography of Erik H. Erikson (London, 1999)Google Scholar.

53 See also the acute pen portraits in his account of Boswell's relationships with his wife and father: Phillipson, “Boswell at Forty”, Times Literary Supplement, 5 May 1978, 490–91.

54 Phillipson, Hume (London, 1989).

55 Phillipson, , Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (London, 2010)Google Scholar.

56 Cf. Phillipson, , “Language, Sociability and History: Some Reflections on the Foundations of Adam Smith's Science of Man”, in Collini, S., Whatmore, R. and Young, B., eds., Economy, Polity and Society: British Intellectual History 1750–1950 (Cambridge, 2000), 70–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 For a fuller review see C. Kidd, “Maiden Aunt’, London Review of Books, 7 Oct. 2010.

58 Cf. Phillipson, “Politics, Politeness and Anglicisation”, 226.

59 Davie, G. E., The Democratic Intellect (Edinburgh, 1981; first published 1961)Google Scholar.

60 Phillipson, “The Evangelist of Common Sense”, Times Literary Supplement, 23 Oct. 1981, 1245–6.

61 Buckle, H. T., On Scotland and the Scotch Intellect, ed. Hanham, H. J. (Chicago, 1970)Google Scholar.

62 Phillipson, , “Henry Thomas Buckle on Scottish History and the Scottish Mind”, History of Education Quarterly, 14 (1974), 407–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

63 Phillipson, “Definition”, 128; Phillipson, “Culture and Society”, 417–18, 432.

64 Phillipson, , “Nationalism and Ideology”, in Wolfe, J. N., ed., Government and Nationalism in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1969), 167–88, 186Google Scholar.