Frases de James Burnett, Lorde Monboddo

James Burnett, Lorde Monboddo foi um juiz, filósofo e linguista escocês, figura proeminente do Iluminismo Escocês e controversa no mundo intelectual britânico do século XVIII. Em 1767 foi nomeado juiz da Court of Session escocesa e adoptou o seu título de Lorde a partir do nome da propriedade do seu pai, Monboddo House.

Na actualidade é conhecido fundamentalmente por ter sido o fundador da filologia comparada. Na sua época, era melhor conhecido pelas suas excentricidades e algumas controversas teorias relacionadas com a evolução do ser humano, tendo sido um dos primeiros a postular que todos os símios e antropóides têm uma origem comum.

Ainda que não tivesse desenvolvido a sua teoria, baseando-as em provas biológicas, é visto como um predecessor directo do evolucionismo darwiniano. Wikipedia

✵ 25. Outubro 1714 – 26. Maio 1799

James Burnett, Lorde Monboddo: 2 citações 0 Curtidas

James Burnett, Lorde Monboddo: Frases em inglês

“Though I think that man has from nature the capacity of living, either by prey, or upon the fruits of the earth; it appears to me, that by nature, and in his original state, he is a frugivorous animal, and that he only becomes an animal of prey by acquired habit.”

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James Burnett, Lord Monboddo

Of the Origin and Progress of Language (Edinburgh and London: J. Balfour and T. Cadell, 2nd ed., 1774), Vol. I, Book II, Ch. II, pp. 224-225 https://archive.org/stream/originandprogre01conggoog#page/n251/mode/2up.

“As to Duration, I still think it is absolutely impossible to conceive it without something that exists, and continues to exist, i. e. to endure. But how it should be a property of the thing existing is to me inconceivable. One thing… is absolutely certain, viz. that if eternal Duration be a property of the Supreme Being, Duration limited must be a property of inferior beings; so that we have here some common property.
I find you agree with Dr Clarke, in considering Time and Duration as the same. But this is an error that Dr Clarke has fallen into, by not being learned in the Ancient Metaphysics; for there he would have learned that time is only the measure of motion. It therefore could not exist, but with the material world; so that, if we could suppose nothing existing but the Supreme Mind, which is immoveable, there would in that case be Duration, or αίών,—as the Greek Philosophers call it—but not χρόνος, or Time. And the Doctor should not have rejected the common distinction, made by all Philosophers and Divines before him, betwixt Time and Eternity, without assigning better reasons than he has done.”

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James Burnett, Lord Monboddo

Letter to Richard Price (Sept. 15, 1780) as quoted by William Angus Knight, Lord Monboddo and Some of His Contemporaries https://books.google.com/books?id=GAEQAAAAYAAJ (1900).