Hartley, David (1705–1757)

By Porter, Roy

David Hartley commands a distinctive place in Enlightenment thinking for his attempt to establish an empiricist epistemology upon a foundation of ontological materialism – in other words, a ...

Hartley, David (1705–1757)

By Allen, Richard C.

David Hartley’s Observations on Man, His Frame, His Duty, and His Expectations (1749) offers an inclusive study of human beings, one that brings together neuro-physiology, cognitive and ...

Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804)

By Schofield, Robert E.

A major figure of the British Enlightenment, Joseph Priestley is best known as a scientist and for his discovery of oxygen, though he was by profession a theologian, ...

Alison, Archibald (1757–1839)

By Townsend, Dabney

Archibald Alison was born in Edinburgh but was educated at Balliol and ordained in the Church of England. He returned to Edinburgh in 1800 as an Anglican clergyman ...

Human nature, science of, in the 18th century

By Berry, Christopher J.

Eighteenth-century speculation on human nature is distinguishable by its approach and underlying assumptions. Taking their cue from Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, many philosophers of the Enlightenment endeavoured ...

Martineau, Harriet (1802–76)

By Webb, R.K.

Harriet Martineau has been called the first woman sociologist and the first woman journalist in England, both better claims on the attention of posterity than her mostly derivative ...

Locke, John (1632–1704)

John Locke was the leading English philosopher of the late seventeenth century. His two major works, An Essay concerning Human Understanding and Two Treatises of ...