Robert Burns and the Philosophers

This volume expounds the influence of Robert Burns’s reading of Philosophy on his life and work, supplementing this with his personal encounters with those philosophers he met. The work begins with the Homespun Philosophy of his early years under the tutelage of William Burnes and John Murdoch, then examines in detail some of the texts of John Locke, Adam Smith and Francis Hutcheson, including other writers who reflect Hutcheson’s thinking. Further chapters include the exploration on Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Archibald Alison and William Greenfield. Robert Burns and the Philosophers does not purport to be a work of philosophy but rather to show the poet’s reaction to the subject and the development of his understanding. This work opens up a subject that hitherto has been almost unexplored.