Francis Hutcheson

Daniel Floyd (University of Aberdeen)

Ed. by Janet Todd, University of Cambridge
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.3: Scottish Writing and Culture, 400-present.
Vol. editors: Kate Ash-Irisarri (University of Edinburgh), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), J. Derrick McClure (University of Aberdeen)

Dates

Born 8 Aug 1694
Died 8 Aug 1746
Activity 1714-1746

Places

Born in Scotland
Active in Scotland

Activities

Primary

Moralist
Philosopher

Resources

Francis Hutcheson was the first in a line of Scottish philosophers that would eventually include David Hume (1711-76), Adam Smith (1723-90) and Thomas Reid (1710-96). His influence on moral philosophy and aesthetics proved far-reaching. Recent critical appraisals have tended to focus on his analyses of the arts, although his contemporaries largely reserved their comments for his work on morality, the topic with which most of his work was concerned. In 1900, Hutcheson's biographer, William Robert Scott, listed a substantial number of books and pamphlets inspired by his publications on ethics and religion, but none on his theory of taste.¹ However, lack of commentary during Hutcheson's lifetime did not mean that his theory of beauty was i…

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1091 words

Citation: Floyd, Daniel. "Francis Hutcheson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 27 May 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2275, accessed 21 November 2024.]

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