SCOZZESE, SCUOLA

SCHOOL OF SCOTLAND. — Also known as the "common sense" school, of which T. REID (q.v.) is the founder and, after him, his best disciple D. STEWART (q.v.). The influence of the Scottish school constitutes not only a chapter in English philosophy between the last two decades of the 18th century and the first decades of the 19th, but also, in the same period, of French and Italian philosophy. It is the affirmation of the so-called "psychologism" (q.v.) in philosophy, whose object is "consciousness" and whose method is therefore the psychological one.

The works of Reid and Stewart, translated into French and some into Italian, enjoyed wide diffusion and effectively entered into the critique of empiricism (q.v.), rationalism (q.v.) in relation to the "new philosophy" of KANT (q.v.). However, while in France and even in England an attempt was made to reconcile Reid and Kant, in Italy the Scottish philosophy was used to criticize Kant himself and to point to Reid as the true critic of Hume's (q.v.) scepticism. While referring for the doctrine of the Scottish school to the entries on its major representatives (Reid, Stewart), the most salient historical developments are indicated here.

I. ENGLAND

Reid's philosophy was continued, with originality, by W. HAMILTON (q.v.), to whom we owe the first critical edition of Reid's works (1846–63), reprinted several times and containing some studies by Hamilton himself; these represent a phase of his thought, which, influenced by Kant, pushed the philosophy of common sense (q.v.) towards agnosticism (q.v.), not only metaphysical but also epistemological. A further step towards scepticism was taken by Mansel (q.v.), a pupil of Hamilton. Thus the Scottish school completes its cycle: first, with Reid, it believes it can overcome the sceptical consequences of empiricism through immediate "belief" (or subjective and instinctive "suggestion") in the existence of an internal and external reality; subsequently, through its less immediate successors, it uses the same principle to consolidate the constitutional insufficiency of human knowledge to resolve the problem of the absolute or the unconditioned.

II. FRANCE

The works of Reid (and also those of Stewart) were translated into French by M. T. Jouffroy *Œuvres complètes de T. Reid*, 4 vols., Paris 1836), with an introduction and critique by Jouffroy himself and a life of Reid by Stewart. This translation increased the diffusion and influence of the philosophy of the Scottish school in France and Italy. Above all, psychology was studied, followed and adopted as a critique of that of Condillac (q.v.) and his followers, as well as of the materialism of Cabanis (q.v.). The concepts of "effort," of the "activity" of consciousness and of "immediate appreciation," typical of the psychology of Maine de Biran (q.v.), were influenced by the doctrines of the Scottish school. It was Royer-Collard who officially introduced the philosophy of common sense at the Sorbonne and developed it in a psychological sense (epistemology and even metaphysics are identified with or reduced to psychology). "Our pleasures and our pains, our hopes and fears, all our sensations, our acts, our thoughts flow before consciousness, like the waters of a river under the eye of an unmoving spectator on the bank" (Royer-Collard, *Leçons*, in *Œuvres de T. Reid*, op. cit., IV, p. 433). The spirit is a reality to be observed, and the observer (the philosopher) must be an indifferent spectator so as not to disturb the analysis with his interventions. Spiritual unity is only a presupposition of analysis, which limits itself to "describing" psychic facts. Even Cousin's (q.v.) eclecticism was influenced by the Scottish school, whose doctrines are combined there with those of Kant and German idealism. Cousin too elevates psychology to a method and a system and considers introspection as the key to solving all philosophical problems. Among other French thinkers influenced by the Scottish school should be mentioned Degérando (well known in Italy especially through Galluppi [q.v.]), Damiron, Laromiguière, etc.

III. ITALY

The influence of the Scots was particularly notable on thinkers in the Kingdom of Naples, but it also aroused interest in Rosmini (q.v.), Gioberti (q.v.), etc. Among the Reidians of Naples should be mentioned Marquis Luigi Dragonetti, whose correspondence (*Spigolature nel carteggio letterario e politico del march. L. D.*, Florence 1886) is a fundamental document for the history of the Scottish school in Italy, and Antonio Papadopoli, correspondent of Dragonetti, as well as Giacinto De Pamphilis, author of *Genografia dello Scibile considerato nella sua unità di utile e di fine* etc. (Naples 1829; 2nd ed. 1887), praised by Tommaseo (*Antologia*, Feb. 1931), who was also an admirer of Reid and naturally of Dragonetti. All were convinced (including Galluppi and to some extent Rosmini and Gioberti) that Scottish philosophy, more than Kant's criticism, was better suited to combat and overcome subjectivism, sensism and scepticism. This conviction distinguishes Italian Reidism from the English and French varieties, which allowed themselves to be influenced by Kant rather than using the Scots to fight him. But the most Reidian of all was Galluppi (q.v.), whom Gioberti (*Primato*, III, Brussels 1842–43, p. 47) defined as "the Reid of Italy." In addition to his well-known writings, two articles by Galluppi should be cited as documents concerning the Scots in Italy: *On the method of studying intellectual philosophy*, which is that of Reid, and *Some observations on common sense*, which is critical in nature (*Il progresso*, 1 [1832], pp. 221–31; 35, 4 of the latest series, [1945], pp. 5–13). This is significant: at the moment of adherence to Scottish philosophy, considered valid in combating scepticism and materialism (and also Kant's "subjectivism"), there followed a critical phase, i.e., an awareness of the limits and insufficiency of that philosophy, something of which Rosmini, though well-disposed towards the Scots, had been aware from the beginning. Gaspare Capone studied Reid in relation to French eclecticism in five memoirs entitled *Sporizione dei principali fondamenti della filosofia scozzese*, written between 1834 and '35 but published in the *Atti della R. Accademia di Napoli* of 1831 (VI, pp. 1–146). Also to be remembered is Baron David Winspeare, author of three volumes of *Saggi di filosofia intellettuale* (Naples 1843–46), which includes a polemic with the Galluppian L. Palmieri regarding Scottish philosophy in Naples. But when Winspeare published his work, the influence of the Scottish school in Italy had waned and the attitude of Italian philosophy towards it was almost exclusively critical.