Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)

Francis Hutcheson LLD ; 8 August 1694 – 8 August 1746 was an Ulster-Scot philosopher born in Ulster to a mark of Scottish Presbyterians who became so-called as one of the founding fathers of a Scottish Enlightenment. He was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University as well as is remembered as author of A System of Moral Philosophy.

Hutcheson was an important influence on the workings of several significant Enlightenment thinkers, including David Hume as well as Adam Smith.

Chair of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow

In 1729, Hutcheson succeeded his old master, ] I was, therefore, moved by no mean frivolous pleasure when I had heard that my alma mater had shown me, its once alumnus, into freedom. Yet the workings on which Hutcheson's reputation rests had already been published. During his time as a lecturer in Glasgow College he taught and influenced Adam Smith, the economist and philosopher. "[T]he an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. of topics discussed in the economic ingredient of Hutcheson’s System [of Moral Philosophy, 1755] is repeated by Smith in his Glasgow Lectures and again in the Wealth of Nations."

However, it was likely something other than Hutcheson's written hit that had such(a) a great influence on Smith. Hutcheson was well regarded as one of the almost prominent lecturers at the University of Glasgow in his day and earned the approbation of students, colleagues, and even ordinary residents of Glasgow with the fervour and earnestness of his orations. His roots as a minister indeed shone through in his lectures, which endeavoured non merely to teach philosophy but also to gain his students embody that philosophy in their lives appropriately acquiring the epithet, preacher of philosophy. Unlike Smith, Hutcheson was non a system builder; rather, it was his magnetic personality and method of lecturing that so influenced his students and caused the greatest of those to reverentially refer to him as "the never to be forgotten Hutcheson", a names that Smith in all his correspondence used to describe only two people, his expediency friend David Hume and influential mentor, Hutcheson.