• Profile half-length photograph of a man facing to the left wearing a dark jacket and tie, holding a cigarette in his hand, with a white handkerchief in his jacket breast pocket. The man has a prominent straight nose, slicked back hair and his tie forms a slight arch from the knot. In the background, on the left side of the image, there is another half-length frontal portrait of a man. He has white hair, also wears a jacket and tie, is looking to the right, and is smiling.

Realism and Scepticism

By Gordon Graham For the Scottish philosophers of the 18th and 19th centuries, Hume was the great ‘sceptic’ awaiting an answer, which many of them thought Thomas Reid had provided. Thanks to Norman Kemp Smith’s seminal papers, philosophers in the…

Image from Paragraph 37.2, Catherine Théodose , Rue Mauve

Francophone Communities Past and Present

By Charles Forsdick, Mairéad Hanrahan and Martin Munro New and original work by some of the leading scholars in Francophone and Caribbean Studies is collated in a special issue of Paragraph, A Journal of Modern Critical Theory. Since at least…

Common Sense and Moral Philosophy

By Gordon Graham Scottish philosophy has regularly been identified with the ‘School of Common Sense’ because of the high regard in which Thomas Reid’s Inquiry was held in his lifetime and for many decades thereafter. Nevertheless, some major Scottish philosophers…

Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games

Sports and the Commodification of Scottish Identity

Glasgow 2014 opened with a celebration of Scottish folklore and identity, themes intrinsically associated with Highland Games. Read: Manly Games, Athletic Sports and the Commodification of Scottish Identity: Caledonian Gatherings in New Zealand to 1915, by Tanya Bueltmann, Scottish Historical…

Scotland’s Referendum

By Michael Rosie, Special Editor for Scottish Affairs, Volume 23.3 (2014) Scotland does not stand still. The last 15 years have seen four elections, the death of a First Minister, the transition from a Scottish Executive to a Scottish Government.…

Scottish Philosophy: Mind and Society

By Gordon Graham The tradition of Scottish philosophy had always had twin foci – the working of the human mind, and the social life of human beings. Some philosophical traditions hold these two areas of inquiry largely apart – Rationalism…

Brendan Behan – A bit of a writer

Before his tragic death by self-destructive alcoholism at age 41, Brendan Behan was a celebrated Irish poet, short story writer, novelist, and playwright who wrote in both English and Irish. Fifty years since his death, a special issue of Irish…

Scottish Philosophy: Neglect and Renewal

By Gordon Graham Philosophy played a key role in the curriculum of the Scottish universities from their foundation in the 15th century to the closing decade of the 19th century. By the middle of the 20th century, however, Hume’s great…

Whose Central Bank is it Anyway?

Division of UK assets and liabilities between an independent Scotland and the rest of the UK (“rUK”) following a YES vote in the September 18th referendum continues to provoke heated discussion with just months to the big event. Rod MacLeod…