John Millar (philosopher) - Wikipedia John Millar (philosopher) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Miniature of Prof John Millar, 1796, Scottish National Portrait Gallery John Millar of Glasgow (22 June 1735 – 30 May 1801) was a Scottish philosopher, historian and Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Glasgow from 1761 to 1800. Contents 1 Biography 2 Family 3 Memorials 4 Works 5 Notes 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links Biography[edit] Born a son of the manse of the Kirk o’ Shotts, Shotts, Lanarkshire, John Millar was educated by an uncle and then on his father being transferred to the parish of Hamilton, at the Old Grammar School of Hamilton (renamed the Hamilton Academy in 1848.)[1][2] Continuing his studies at the University of Glasgow, he became one of the most important followers of Adam Smith, the founder of economic science. For a short time in the 1750s he was tutor in the household of Henry Home, Lord Kames. In 1760 he was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates.[3] From 1761 to 1800, Millar was Regius Professor of Civil Law at Glasgow, where his lectures gained him nationwide fame. His colleagues and supporters included Smith, Kames, and David Hume. Millar was elected Clerk of the Senate of the University of Glasgow in 1772.[4] Millar's Origin of the Distinction of Ranks, published in 1778, advanced the view that economic system determines all social relations, even those between the genders. Such a view later became known as economic determinism, and was an important influence on Marxism. Werner Sombart described Millar's book as "one of the best and most complete sociologies that we possess".[5][6] His Historical View of the English Government, published from 1787, was an important contemporary history of England, representing a milestone in the development of historiography. Millar engaged with other historians, drawing comparisons with the works and emphasised the social and economic bases of political system, which strongly differentiated his work from most of the earlier ones, which were more speculative than scientific. Family[edit] Millar lost a daughter by consumption in 1791, and his wife in 1795. His eldest son, John, a promising young man, went to the bar, and married the daughter of Dr. Cullen. He published a book, "Elements of the Law relating to Insurances", in 1787. Ill-health and the unpopularity of the Whiggism which he inherited from his father induced him to emigrate in the spring of 1795 to America, where he died soon afterwards from a sunstroke.[7] Three sons and six daughters survived their father. Of these James became professor of mathematics at Glasgow; the second, William joined the Royal Artillery; the third was a writer to the signet. One daughter, Agnes was married to James Mylne, professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, and another, Margaret, to Dr. John Thomson, by whom she was mother of Allan Thomson, professor of surgery at Edinburgh. He left his manuscripts to his eldest son, to Professor Mylne, and to John Craig, his nephew, by whom some were published in 1803.[7][8] Memorials[edit] In 1985 the John Millar Chair of Law at the University of Glasgow was established in his memory.[9] Works[edit] Observations concerning the Distinction of Ranks in Society, 1771. Revised second edition, 1773. An Historical View of the English Government, 1787. An Historical View of the English Government from the Settlement of the Saxons in Britain to the Revolution in 1688. To which are subjoined some Dissertations Connected with the History of the Government from the Revolution to the Present Time, 3rd ed., ed. J. Mylne & J. Craig, 4 vols, Edinburgh, 1803 (Anon.), Letters of Crito on the causes, objects, and consequences, of the present war, 1796 Notes[edit] ^ International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences 1968 Millar, John Retrieved 2011-05-04 ^ Gateway to the Archive of Scottish Higher Education Biography, John Millar Retrieved 2011-05-04 ^ Haakonssen, Knud (2006), "Millar, John", in Haakonssen, Knud (ed.), The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy, 2, Cambridge University Press, p. 1205 ^ University of Glasgow. Biography, John Millar Retrieved 201-05-03 ^ Strasser, Hermann (13 August 2014). "3". The Normative Structure of Sociology. Routledge. ISBN 9781317652311. ^ Lehmann, W. C. (1952). "John Millar, Historical Sociologist: Some Remarkable Anticipations of Modern Sociology". British Journal of Sociology. 3 (1): 31. doi:10.2307/587525. JSTOR 587525. ^ a b Stephen 1894, p. 203. ^ http://www.universitystory.gla.ac.uk/biography/?id=WH1192&type=P ^ University of Glasgow. The John Millar Chair of Law Retrieved 2011-05-04 References[edit]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:  Stephen, Leslie (1894). "Millar, John (1735-1801)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 37. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 401–403. Endnotes: Life, by John Craig, prefixed to Origin of Ranks, 1806 Scots Mag. 1801, pp. 527–8 A. Carlyle's Autobiog. 1860, p. 492 Life of Lord Minto, 1879, ii. 26 Edinburgh Review, iii. 154–81, iv. 83–92 (articles by Jeffrey upon the "History" and the "Life") Further reading[edit] Haakonssen, Knud; Cairns, John W. (2004). "Millar, John (1735–1801)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18716. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.) Miller, Nicholas B. (2017). John Millar and the Scottish Enlightenment: Family Life and World History. Oxford. ISBN 978-0-7294-1192-9 Lehmann, William.(1979), John Millar of Glasgow, 1735-1801: His Life and Thought and His Contributions to Sociological Analysis, Arno Press Ignatieff, Michael. “John Millar and individualism”, in Wealth and Virtue: the Shaping of Political economy in the Scottish Enlightenment,Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (eds.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. Lazar, Veronica, "Saving the rules from the exceptions? John Millar, the Scottish Enlightenment and the history of the family", Global Intellectual History, vol. 4, 2019 (https://doi.org/10.1080/23801883.2019.1643114). External links[edit] Selected primary works Full text of The Origin of The Distinction of Ranks John Millar at The Online Library of Liberty Works by or about John Millar in libraries (WorldCat catalog) Authority control BNE: XX4583857 BNF: cb12291239g (data) GND: 11937711X ISNI: 0000 0000 8339 4498 LCCN: n79046238 NDL: 00808399 NLA: 49860283 NTA: 068421435 SNAC: w6w09hfb SUDOC: 031756360 Trove: 1510536 VcBA: 495/231667 VIAF: 14835101 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n79046238 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Millar_(philosopher)&oldid=992769883" Categories: 1735 births 1801 deaths 18th-century Scottish people People from Shotts People educated at Hamilton Academy Alumni of the University of Glasgow Academics of the University of Glasgow Scottish historians Scottish legal scholars People of the Scottish Enlightenment Scottish philosophers Members of the Faculty of Advocates Enlightenment philosophers Hidden categories: Use dmy dates from November 2012 Articles incorporating Cite DNB template Articles incorporating DNB text with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NDL identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikisource Languages Deutsch Français Italiano Português Edit links This page was last edited on 7 December 2020, at 00:24 (UTC). 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