Jump to content

Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Scott, Robert Eden

From Wikisource
605637Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 51 — Scott, Robert Eden1897James McMullen Rigg

SCOTT, ROBERT EDEN (1770–1811), philosopher, born at Old Aberdeen in 1770, graduated M.A. at the University and King's College, Aberdeen, on 30 March 1785, was appointed regent on 8 May 1788, and, after holding in co-professoriate the chair of natural philosophy interchangeably with those of Greek, mathematics, and moral philosophy, held the last exclusively from 1800 until his death, which occurred at Edinburgh on 21 Jan. 1811. His portrait is in the possession of the University of Aberdeen. Scott married at Old Aberdeen, on 19 Feb. 1797, Rachel Forbes of Thainstown. He was author of:

  1. ‘Elements of Rhetoric,’ 1802.
  2. ‘Elements of Intellectual Philosophy, or an Analysis of the Powers of the Human Understanding,’ Edinburgh, 1805, 8vo.
  3. ‘Inquiry into the Limits and Peculiar Objects of Physical and Metaphysical Science,’ Edinburgh, 1810, 8vo.

He belonged to the Scottish, or common-sense, school of philosophy.

[Scots Mag. 1797 p. 143, 1811 p. 159; Officers and Graduates of Univ. and King's Coll. Aberdeen (New Spalding Club), 1893, pp. 64, 259, 320; Blakey's Hist. Ment. Phil. iv. 23.]