Thomas Brown

Thomas Brown (1778–1820), Professor of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh, was among the most prominent and widely read British philosophers of the first half of the nineteenth century. An influential interpreter of both Hume and Reid, Brown provided a bridge between the Scottish school of 'Common Sense' and the later positivism of John Stuart Mill and others.
The selections in this volume illustrate Brown's original ideas about mental science, cause and effect, emotions and ethics. They are preceded by an introduction situating Brown's career and writings in their intellectual and historical context.

Keywords: Moral philosophy, Hume, Reid, Thomas Brown, Common Sense School, positivism, John Stuart Mill, mental science, cause and effect, emotions, ethics, instinct, miracles, customary conjunction, power, scepticism, atheism, God, mental phenomena, touch, Condillac, consciousness, sympathy, virtue, morality, moral emotion, Paley, Adam Smith, Moral sense