525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of The University of Aberdeen

The intellectual history of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, known as the ‘Wise Club’ after its founding in 1758, maps onto the institutional history of King’s and Marischal colleges in the eighteenth century. The proceedings of philosophical and literary societies were woven into the fabric of eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment intellectual culture, and, in particular, they promoted collaborative knowledge exchange within a university community.

Show Notes

The intellectual history of the Aberdeen Philosophical Society, known as the ‘Wise Club’ after its founding in 1758, maps onto the institutional history of King’s and Marischal colleges in the eighteenth century. The proceedings of philosophical and literary societies were woven into the fabric of eighteenth-century Scottish Enlightenment intellectual culture, and, in particular, they promoted collaborative knowledge exchange within a university community. 

Following this Scottish pattern in higher education, fourteen of the fifteen Wise Club members, which included Thomas Reid (1710-96), George Campbell (1719-96) and James Beattie (1735-1803), were alumni of and/or held positions at Aberdeen colleges. In spite of unsuccessful attempts to formally unite King’s and Marischal in 1747, 1754, 1770-72 and 1785-87, this cluster of relatively few academics advanced a concerted Aberdeen Enlightenment between 1758 and 1773. 

Dr Bow contextualises the scientific cultivation of natural knowledge in the thought of Reid as a defining pursuit of the Aberdeen Enlightenment and origin of the Scottish School of common sense philosophy—Scotland’s most successful invisible export by the turn of the nineteenth century. Beyond informing the curricular reforms at Aberdeen colleges, the fruit of the Wise Club’s discourse transformed approaches to moral and intellectual improvement at universities throughout the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic world. 
 

What is 525 Years in the Pursuit of Truth: A New History of The University of Aberdeen ?

From its ancient origins in the 1495 founding of King’s College through to thriving global endeavours in 2020, the University of Aberdeen boasts a historic legacy spanning 525 years of leading and engaging with intellectual currents of the wider world. Yet quatercentenary and quincentennial memorial histories of the University of Aberdeen portray the institution from a regional and national perspective. The Aberdeen University librarian between 1894 and 1926, Peter John Anderson (1853-1926), edited the quatercentenary commemoration volume, Studies in the History of the University published by the New Spalding Club in 1906. Serving as the secretary of the New Spalding Club, Anderson sought to promote the Club’s interests in the North-East of Scotland by shedding new light on the history of the University. In celebration of the quinquennial anniversary, another brief illustrated history of the University by Jennifer Carter and Colin McLaren—Crown and Gown—published by Aberdeen University Press in 1994 succinctly surveys University achievements as historically significant in Scottish contexts. This podcast series, drawn from a forthcoming edited volume to be published by Aberdeen University Press, presents a new history of the University of Aberdeen, one that accounts for the University’s activities in the transnational and global transmission of ideas since its foundation.