Abstract
The eighteenth-century moral philosopher Archibald Campbell is now largely
forgotten, even to specialists in the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet his work is worth
recovering both as part of the immediate reception of Bernard Mandeville and
Francis Hutcheson’s rival moral philosophies, and for better understanding the
state of Scottish moral philosophy a decade before David Hume published his
Treatise of Human Nature. This paper offers a reading of Campbell as deploying a
specifically Epicurean philosophy that resists both the Augustinianism of
Mandeville, and the Stoicism of Hutcheson. This leads him onto ground later
claimed more conclusively by Hume, whilst helping us to better conceptualise the
deployment and recovery of Hellenistic thought in the early modern period.
forgotten, even to specialists in the Scottish Enlightenment. Yet his work is worth
recovering both as part of the immediate reception of Bernard Mandeville and
Francis Hutcheson’s rival moral philosophies, and for better understanding the
state of Scottish moral philosophy a decade before David Hume published his
Treatise of Human Nature. This paper offers a reading of Campbell as deploying a
specifically Epicurean philosophy that resists both the Augustinianism of
Mandeville, and the Stoicism of Hutcheson. This leads him onto ground later
claimed more conclusively by Hume, whilst helping us to better conceptualise the
deployment and recovery of Hellenistic thought in the early modern period.
| Original language | Undefined/Unknown |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 791-814 |
| Number of pages | 24 |
| Journal | History of European Ideas |
| Volume | 39 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 1 Dec 2012 |