The Elements of Moral Philosophy, with A Brief Account of the Nature, Progress, and Origin of Philosophy

Though little known today, David Fordyce was an important figure in the Scottish Enlightenment and closely associated with liberal Dissenters in England.
His Elements of Moral Philosophy was a notable contribution to the curriculum in moral philosophy and a widely circulated text in moral philosophy in the second half of the eighteenth century.
It was first published as part of a comprehensive textbook system in 1748 and as a separate book in
1754. It is the latter that is now being reissued.
The significance of The Elements is evidenced by the fact that it was included practically verbatim in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1771).
A Brief Account, Fordyce’s opening lectures to his
Marischal class of 1743/44, has never before been published.
David Fordyce (1711–1751)
taught at Marischal College, Aberdeen.
Thomas D. Kennedy is Associate
Professor of Philosophy at Valparaiso
University.
Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.