Scottish National Dictionary (1700–)
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First published 1968 (SND Vol. VII).
This entry has not been updated since then but may contain minor corrections and revisions.
PHILOSOPHY, n. In Sc. Univ. usage specif. applied to the courses in Ethics, Physics and Metaphysics, which constituted the later and greater part of the curriculum leading to the degree of M.A. The term was thence extended to cover the preliminary studies in language (Latin and Greek) and so came to designate the Arts course as a whole. Obs. since the middle of the 18th c. When the Regent (q.v.) system was abolished, the Arts subjects became departmentalised, and the name Philosophy reverted to its proper categories, the word Arts surviving for the faculty and its combined disciplines. For natural philosophy see Natural.Sc. 1703 A. Morgan Charters Univ. Edb. (1937) 223–6:
The Faculty of Philosophy in the University of Edinburgh . . . [1733] Some of the Professors of the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts.Sc. 1706 Records Marischal Coll. (S.C.) I. 384:
Fifty merks Scots money yearly for the maintainance of a Student of philosophie in the Marischall Colledge of Aberdein which Student being ance presented thereto He shall brook and enjoy the samen for the space of full four years that he passes all his Courses.Sc. 1708 Edb. Univ. Calendar (1956–7) xxxviii.:
The Regents of Philosophy taught in rotation the four classes in the Curriculum of Arts.Sc. c.1711 Two Students (Dickinson 1952) lxxi.:
The Regius Professor of Mathematics [at St. Andrews] was regarded as a university professor distinct from any college but who in practice usually formed an association with one or other of the “colleges of philosophy”.Sc. 1822 P. R. Lang Duncan Dewar (1926) 181:
His Philosophy — or, as it is now called, his Arts — course in the [St. Andrews] University.Sc. 1884 A. Grant Univ. Edb. I. 216:
The Department of Philosophy or Arts in the College had now reached its fullest seventeenth-century development.Sc. 1946 R. G. Cant Univ. St. Andrews 36:
This is a very early use [1554] of the term “professors of philosophy”; by the seventeenth century, it was generally adopted in the Scottish universities to describe the four “ordinary” regents in Arts.
