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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BRI-BUN |
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BROWN, THOMAS (1778-1820) , Scottish philosopher, was born at Kirkmabreck, Kirkcudbright, where his father was parish clergyman. He was a boy of a refined nature, a wide reader and an eager student. Educated at several schools in London, he went to Edinburgh University in 1792, where he attended Dugald Stewart's moral philosophy class. His attendance was desultory, and he does not appear to have completed his arts course. After studying law for a time he took up medicine
great
analysis , as was shown in his answer to the objections raised against the appointment of Sir John Leslie to the mathematical professorship (18o5). Leslie, a follower of Hume, was attacked by the clerical party as a sceptic and an infidel, and Brown took the opportunity to defend Hume's doctrine of causality as in no way inimical to religion. His defence, at first only a pamphlet, became in its third edition a lengthy treatise entitled Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, and is a fine specimen of Brown's analytical faculty. In 18o6 he became a medical practitioner in partner-ship with James Gregory, but, though successful in his profession, preferred literature and philosophy. After twice failing in the attempt to gain a professorship in the university, he was invited, during an illness of Dugald Stewart in the session of 1808-1809, to act as his substitute, and during the following session he undertook a great
work
work
His friend and biographer, David
Physiology of the Human Mind, and his Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind was published by his successors, John Stewart and the Rev. E. Milroy. The latter was received with great enthusiasm both in England (where it reached its 19th edition) and in America; but recent
Brown's philosophy occupies an intermediate place between the earlier Scottish school and the later analytical or associational psychology. To the latter Brown really belonged, but he had preserved certain doctrines of the older school which were out of harmony with his fundamental view. He still retained a small quantum of intuitive beliefs, and did not appear to see that the very existence of these could not be explained by his theory of mental action. This intermediate or wavering position accounts for the comparative neglect into which his works have now fallen. They did much to excite thinking, and advanced many problems by more than one step, but they did not furnish a coherent system, and the doctrines which were then new have since been worked out with greater consistency and clearness. Brown wrote a criticism of Darwin's Zoonomia (1798), and was one of the first contributors to the Edinburgh Review , in the second number of which he published a criticism of the Kantian philosophy, based entirely on Villers's French account of it. Among his poems, which are modelled on Pope
Spring (1817); Agnes (1818); Emily (1819); a collected edition in 4 vols. appeared in 1820.For a severe criticism of Brown's philosophy, see Sir W. Hamilton's Discussions and Lectures on Metaphysics; and for a high estimate of his merits, see J. S. Mill's Examination of Hamilton. Sec also D. Welsh's Account of the Life and Writings, &c. (1825); M'Cosh's Scottish Philosophy, pp. 317-337. The only German writer who seems to have known anything of Brown is Beneke, who found in him anticipations of some of his own doctrines. .See Die neue Psychologie, pp. 320-330. End of Article: BROWN, THOMAS (1778-1820) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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