Lord Monboddo’s Anti-Enlightenment. Conjectural History, Human Nature, and the Teleological Foundation of Language

This paper aims to illustrate how Lord Monboddo (James Burnett), one of the most eccentric figures of the Scottish Enlightenment, conceived language, contrasting his positions with the views adopted by his contemporaries who endorsed Lockean and Newtonian empiricism. I will take into consideration his two major works (Of the Origin and Progress of Language and Antient Metaphysics) in order to elucidate some analytical aspects concerning Monboddo’s account of language and his sharp critique directed towards Locke’s theory of knowledge. Eventually, after analyzing Monboddo’s metaphysical frame, his adoption of a hylomorphic account of the mind, and his endorsement of Aristotelian physics, I will endeavor to show how such elements are linked to his teleological conception of conjectural history, whose peak is represented by reason, language of art, and the political foundation of the civil society.

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