On this day in 1723, Dr. Adam Ferguson, Scottish historian and philosopher, was born.
As Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University, he was a proponent of so-called "common-sense" philosophy, a precursor to modern sociology. He used the lessons of history to inform his moral thinking, and his later works especially are thought to have influenced philosophers such as Marx and Hegel. Ferguson is also famous by association, as it was at his house in 1787 that a chance meeting occurred between two Scots literary giants, Robert Burns and a young Walter Scott.
