Everything about John Mair totally explained
John Mair or
John Major (also known in
Latin as
Joannes Majoris and
Haddingtonus Scotus) (
1467-
1550) was a
Scottish philosopher, much admired in his day and an acknowledged influence on all the great thinkers of the time. He was a very renowned teacher and his works much collected and frequently republished across Europe. His "
sane conservatism" and his
sceptical,
logical approach to the study of texts such
Aristotle or the
Bible, were less prized in the subsequent age of
humanism where a more committed, and linguistic/literary, approach prevailed. His influence in
logic (especially the analysis of
terms), science (
impetus and
infinitesimals), politics (placing the people over kings), Church (councils over Popes), and
international law (establishing the human rights of "
savages" conquered by the
Spanish) can be traced across the centuries and appear decidedly modern, and it's only in the modern age that he isn't routinely dismissed as a
scholastic. His
Latin style didn't help - he thought that "it is more moment to understand aright, and clearly to lay down the truth of any matter than to use eloquent language". Nevertheless, it to his writings, including their dedications, that we owe much our knowledge of the everyday facts of Mair's life - for example his "shortness of stature". He was an extremely curious and very observant man, and used his experiences - of earthquakes in
Paisley, thunder in
Glasgow, storms at sea, eating outcakes in northern England - to illustrate the more abstract parts of his logical writings.==Life==
School
John Mair (or ‘Major’) was born about
1467 in
Gleghornie, near
North Berwick where he received his early education. It was at nearby
Haddington,
East Lothian, Scotland, where he attended
grammar school. He was probably taught by the town schoolmaster
George Litsar, who was, according to Mair "although a circumspect man in other was, more severe than was just in beating boys". If it hadn't been for the influence of his mother, Mair says he'd have left, but he and his brother stayed on and were successful. According to him,
Haddington was
“the town which fostered the beginning of my studies, and in whose kindly embrace I was nourished as a novice with the sweetest milk of the art of grammar”. He says he stayed in Haddington "
to a pretty advanced age" and he remembers the sound of the
King James III's bombardment of the nearby
castle of
Dunbar, which was in
1479. He also remembers the comet which was supposed to have foretold the King's defeat at
Sauchieburn which was in
1488. However, it was in
1490, he reports, that he "
first left the paternal hearth". In
1490, probably under the influence of
Robert Cockburn, another Haddington man, destined to be an influential bishop (of
Ross and later of
Dunkeld), he decided to go to
Paris to study among the great numbers of Scots there at the time.
University
It isn't known whether he attended
university in Scotland as a student – there are no matriculation records of him and he claimed never to have seen the university town of
St Andrews,
Fife as a young man (though he did complain later of its bad beer). He seems to have decided to prepare for Paris at
Cambridge in England. He says that in
1491 he attended ‘
Gods House’, which later became
Christ's College. He remembers the bells - "
on great feast days, I spent half the night listening to them" - but was obviously well-prepared, as he left for Paris after three terms.
In
1493 he matriculated in the
University of Paris,
France, then the foremost University in Europe. He studied at the
Collège Sainte-Barbe and took his Bachelor of Arts degree there in
1495 followed by his Master’s degree in
1496. There were many currents of thought in Paris but he was heavily influenced, as were fellow Scots such as
Lawrence of Lindores by the
nominalist and
empiricist approach of
John Buridan. (The latter's influence on
Copernicus and
Galileo can be traced through Mairs published works). He became a student master (‘regent’) in Arts in the
Collège de Montaigu in
1496 and began the study of
theology under the formidable
Jan Standonck. He consorted with scholars of later renown, some from his hometown,
Robert Walterston, and his home country (
David Cranston of
Glasgow, who died in
1512), but mostly they were the luminaries of the age, including
Erasmus, whose reforming enthusiasms he shared,
Rabelais and
Reginald Pole. In the winter of
1497 he'd a serious illness, from which he never completely recovered. He had never had dreams before, but ever afterwards he was troubled by dreams,
migraine,
colic and "
excessive sleepiness" (he was always hard to awaken). In
1499, he moved to the
College of Navarre. In
1501, he received his Bachelor's degree in Theology and in
1505 his logical writings were collected and published for the first time. In
1506 he was licensed to teach theology and was awarded the degree of
Doctor of Divinity on the 11th of November that year (coming 3rd in the listings). He taught at the
Collège de Montaigu (where he was, temporarily joint Director) and also the prestigious
Sorbonne, where he served on many commissions.
Later career
In
1510 he's discussing the moral and legal questions arising from the
Spanish discovery of
America. He claimed that the natives had political and property rights that couldn't be invaded, at least not without compensation. He also uses the new discoveries to argue for the possibility of innovation in all knowledge saying "
Has not Amerigo Vespucci discovered lands unknown to Ptolemy, Pliny and other geographers up to the present? Why can't the same happen in other spheres?" At the same time, he was impatient of
humanist criticism of the logical analyis of texts (including the Bible).
"..these questions which the humanists think futile, are like a ladder for the intelligence to rise towards the Bible" (which he elsewhere, perhaps unwisely called "
the easier parts of theology"). Nevertheless, in
1512, like a good
humanist, he's learning Greek from
Girolamo Aleandro (who re-introduced the study of Greek to Paris) who wrote "
Many scholastics are to be found in France who are keen students in different kinds of knowledge and several of these are among my faithful hearers, such as John Mair, Doctor of Philosophy..."
In
1518 he returned to Scotland to become Principal of the
University of Glasgow (and also
canon of
the cathedral,
vicar of
Dunlop and Treasurer of the Chapel Royal). He returned to Paris several times - by sea one time, getting delayed in Dieppe for three weeks by a storm; and by land another time, having dinner en route through England with his friend,
Cardinal Wolsey. He offered Mair a post, which he declined, in his new college at the
University of Oxford, to be called Cardinal's College, (later
Christ Church, Oxford. In
1528,
King Francis I of France issued Mair with a patent of naturalisation, making him a naturalised subject of France.
In
1533 he was made Provost of St Salvator's College in the
University of St Andrews - to which thronged many of the most significant men in Scotland, including
John Knox and
George Buchanan. He missed Paris - "
When I was in Scotland, I often thought how I'd go back to Paris and give lectures as I used to and hear disputations". He died in
1550 (perhaps on the 1st of May), his works read throughout Europe, his name honoured everywhere, just as the storms of the
Reformation were about to sweep away, at least in his own country, any respect for his centuries-old methodology.
Some publications by John Mair
- Lectures in logic (Lyons 1516)
- Reportia Parisiensia by Duns Scotus co-edited by Mair Paris 1517-18
- Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard (In Libros Sententiarum primum et secundum commentarium) Paris 1519
- History of Greater Britain (Historia majoris Britanniae, tam Angliae quam Scotiae) Paris 1521
- De Gestis Scotorum Paris 1521
- Commentary on Aristotle's physical and ethical writings Paris 1526
- Quaestiones logicales Paris 1528
- Commentary on the Four Gospels Paris 1528
- Disputationes de Potestate Papae et Concilii (Paris)
- Commentary on Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics (his last book)
Influence
Historians
His
De Gestis Scotorum (Paris, 1521) was partly a patriotic attempt to raise the profile of his native country, but was also an attempt to clear away myth and fable, basing his history on evidence. In this, he was following in the footsteps of his predecessor, the
Chronicler Andrew of Wyntoun, though writing in
Latin for a European audience as opposed to the
Scots Andrew wrote for his aristocratic Scots patrons. Although the documentary evidence available to Mair was limited, his scholarly approach was adopted and improved by later historians of
Scotland, including his pupil
Hector Boece and
John Lesley.
Calvin and Loyola
In
1506 he was awarded a doctorate in
theology by Paris where he began to teach and progress through the hierarchy, becoming for a brief period
Rector. (Some 18 of his fellow Scots had held or were to hold this prestigious position). He was a renowned
logician and philosopher. He is reported to have been a very clear and forceful lecturer, attracting students from all over Europe. In contrast, he'd a rather dry, some said 'barbaric', written
Latin style. He was referred to by
Pierre Bayle as writing "
in stylo Sorbonico", not meaning this as a compliment. His interests ranged across the burning issues of the day. His approach largely followed
Nominalism which was in tune with the growing emphasis on the absolutely unconstrained nature of God, which in turn emphasised his grace and the importance of individual belief and submission. His
humanist approach was in tune with the return to the texts in the original languages of the Scriptures and classical authors. He emphasised that authority lay with the whole church and not with the Pope. Similarly, he asserted that authority in a kingdom lay not with the king but with the people, who could retake their power from a delinquent king (a striking echo of the ringing
Declaration of Arbroath 1314 confirming to the Pope the independence of the Scottish crown from that of England). It isn't surprising that he emphasised the natural freedom of human beings. His influence extended through enthusiastic pupils to the leading thinkers of the day but most obviously to a group of
Spanish thinkers, including
Antonio Coronel, who taught
John Calvin and very probably
Ignatius of Loyola.
In
1522, at
Salamanca,
Domingo de San Juan referred to him "
the revered master, John Mair, a man celebrated the world over". The Salamanca school of (largely
Thomist) philosophers was a brilliant flowering of thought until the early parts of the seventeenth century. It included
Vitoria,
Cano, de
Soto and
Medina, each one thorough soaked in Mairian enthusiasms.
Knox
Mair wrote in his
Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard “Our native soil attracts us with a secret and inexpressible sweetness and doesn't permit us to forget it”. He returned to Scotland in
1518. Given his success and experience in Paris, it's no surprise that he became the Principal of the
University of Glasgow. In
1523 left for the
University of St Andrews where he was assessor to the Dean of Arts. In
1525 he went again to Paris from where he returned in
1531 eventually to become
Provost of
St Salvator's College, St Andrews until his death in
1550, aged about eighty three. One of his most notable students was
John Knox (coincidentally, another native of Haddington) who said of Mair that he was such as "
whose work was then held as an oracle on the matters of religion" If this isn't exactly a ringing endorsement, it isn't hard to see in Knox's preaching an intense version of Mair's enthusiasms - the utter freedom of God, the importance of the Bible, scepticism of earthly authority. It might be more surprising that Mair preferred to follow his friend
Erasmus's example and remain within the
Roman Catholic Church (though he did envisage a national church for Scotland). Mair also enthused other Scottish
Reformers including the Protestant martyr
Patrick Hamilton and the Latin stylist
George Buchanan, whose enthusiasm for witty Latinisms had him waspishly suggesting that the only thing major about his ex-teacher was his surname - typical Renaissance disdain for the
Schoolmen.
Empiricism
Mair and his circle were interested in the structures of
language – spoken, written and ‘mental’. This latter was the language which underlies the thoughts that are expressed in natural languages, like
Scots,
English or
Latin. He attacks a whole range of questions from a generally ‘nominalist’ perspective – a form of philosophical discourse whose tradition derives from the high
Middle Ages and was to continue into that of the Scottish and other
European empiricists. According to
Alexander Brodie, Mair’s influence on this latter tradition reached as far as the 18th and
19th century Scottish School of Common Sense initiated by
Thomas Reid. The highly logical and technical approach of
Medieval philosophy – perhaps added to by Mair’s poor written style as well as his adherence to the
Catholic party at the time of the
Reformation – explain in some part why this influence is still somewhat occluded.
Human rights
More obviously influential was his
moral philosophy, not primarily because of his
casuistry - an approach acknowledging the complexity of individual cases. This was later so strong in
Jesuit teaching, possibly related to the Mair’s renown in Spain mentioned above. His legal views were also influential. His Commentaries on the
Sentences of
Peter Lombard was most certainly studied and quoted in the debates at
Burgos in
1512, by
Frày Anton Montesino, a graduate of
Salamanca. This "
debate unique in the history of empires", as
Hugh Thomas calls it, resulted in the recognition in Spanish law of the
indigenous populations of
America as being free
human beings with all the
rights (to liberty and property, for example) attached to them. This pronouncement was hedged in with many subtle qualifications, and the
Spanish crown was never efficient at enforcing it, but it can be regarded as the fount of
human rights law.
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