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.