The Theory of Moral Sentiments - Adam Smith [250]
Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet and satirist, famed for his lyric Odes, which were particularly beloved in early modern England.
Hume, David (1711-1776), Scottish philosopher renowned for works of immediate and lasting impact across a range of fields, including metaphysics and epistemology (A Treatise of Human Nature, 1739-1740; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding, 1748), ethics (An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, 1751), aesthetics, belles lettres and political economy (Essays, 1753), history (History of England , 1754-1762), and natural theology (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, pub. 1779); whether Smith shared his skepticism is a matter of considerable debate, yet the two were lasting friends with Smith eulogizing Hume in a notorious public letter published upon his death.
Hutcheson, Francis (1694-1746), Irish-born philosopher and Presbyterian clergyman and principal figure of the early Scottish Enlightenment, he was the author of several influential texts, including An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of the Passions and Affections. With Illustrations on the Moral Sense (1728), Philosophiae Moralis Institutio Compendiaria (trans. as Short Introduction to Moral Philosophy, 1747), and A System of Moral Philosophy (pub. 1755); as professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, he was both Smith’s teacher as well as his predecessor, and Smith was greatly influenced by his efforts to reconcile classical conceptions of virtue with Christian ethical conceptions.
Iago: See Othello.
James I (1566-1625), king of Scotland (as James VI) from 1567, and king of England and Ireland (as James I) from 1603 to his death; succeeded by his son, Charles I.
James II (1633-1701), king of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1685 to 1689; the younger surviving son of Charles I, he ascended to the throne on the death of his brother Charles II with his reign ending when William of Orange compelled his abdication.
Joanna of Castile (Joanna the Mad; 1479-1555), queen of Castile; daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, mother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, and sister of Catherine of Aragon, she is remembered principally as the dependent wife of Philip who slipped into insanity upon his death.
Jocasta: see Oedipus.
Kames, Henry Home, Lord (1696-1782), Scottish man of letters and civic administrator; his works covered a remarkably wide span, including influential contributions on ethics and natural theology (Essays on the Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, 1751); criticism (Elements of Criticism, 1762); legal history (Historical Law-Tracts, 1758), anthropology, and conjectural history (Sketches of the History of Man, 1774); and education (Loose Hints Upon Education, 1781); Kames was also the sponsor of Smith’s lectures on rhetoric delivered in Edinburgh in 1749.
King of Epirus: See Pyrrhus.
King of Macedon: See Perseus.
Lactantius (ca. AD 240-320), religious apologist; known as the “Christian Cicero,” his major work, Divine Institutions, sought to explain and defend Christianity before a Roman audience.
Lafitau, Joseph-François (1681-1746), French Jesuit missionary to Canada, where his skills at naturalism led him to the discovery of North American ginseng (fueling a European craze for the root previously available only from China); his careful and detailed observations of the Iroquois, Manners of the American Savages, Compared to the Manners of the Earliest Times (1724), proved to be an influential account of the native North Americans and an important early instance of comparative anthropology.
La Fontaine, Jean de (1621-1695), French author and moralist, noted for his Fables (1668, with successive volumes in 1678 and 1694), which received wide audiences in England in part thanks to Mandeville’s translations; he took the side of the ancients in the quarrel of the ancients