Concept
University of Aberdeen
Overview
The University of Aberdeen (abbreviated Aberd. in post-nominals; Scottish Gaelic: Oilthigh Obar Dheathain) is a public research university in Aberdeen, Scotland. It was founded in 1495 when William Elphinstone, Bishop of Aberdeen and Chancellor of Scotland, petitioned Pope Alexander VI on behalf of King James IV to establish King's College, making it one of Scotland's four ancient universities and the fifth-oldest university in the English-speaking world. Along with the universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Edinburgh, the university was part of the Scottish Enlightenment during the 18th century.
The university as it is currently constituted was formed in 1860 by a merger between King's College and Marischal College, a second university founded in 1593 as a Protestant alternative to the former. The university's iconic buildings act as symbols of wider Aberdeen, particularly Marischal College in the city centre and the crown steeple of King's College in Old Aberdeen. There are two campuses; the predominantly utilised King's College campus dominates the section of the city known as Old Aberdeen, which is approximately two miles north of the city centre. Although the original site of the university's foundation, most academic buildings apart from the King's College Chapel and Quadrangle were constructed in the 20th century during a period of significant expansion. The university's Foresterhill campus is next to Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and houses the School of Medicine and Dentistry as well as the School of Medical Sciences. Together these buildings form one of Europe's largest health campuses. The annual income of the institution for 2024–25 was £257.2 million of which £54.2 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £262.5 million.
Aberdeen has educated a wide range of notable alumni, and the university played key roles in the Scottish Reformation, Scottish Enlightenment, and the Scottish Renaissance. Five Nobel laureates have since been associated with the university: two in Chemistry, one in Physiology or Medicine, one in Physics, and one in Peace.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
This new tinge to modern minds is a vehement and passionate interest in the relation of general principles to irreducible and stubborn facts. All the world over and at all times there have been practical men, absorbed in ‘irreducible and stubborn facts’: all the world over and at all times there have been men of philosophic temperament who have been absorbed in the weaving of general principles. It is this union of…
Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the modern world
The author is tied to University of Aberdeen in the knowledge graph.
Reformation must begin at the other end. First, you must make up your mind as to those quantitative aspects of the world which are simple enough to be introduced into general education; then a schedule of algebra should be framed which will about find its exemplification in these applications. We need not fear for our pet graphs, they will be there in plenty when we once begin to treat algebra as a serious means of…
Alfred North Whitehead, The organisation of thought, educational and scientific
The author is tied to University of Aberdeen in the knowledge graph.
The improvements which, in modern times have been made in several different branches of philosophy, have not, the greater part of them, been made in universities, though some, no doubt, have. The greater part of universities have not even been very forward to adopt those improvements after they were made; and several of those learned societies have chosen to remain, for a long time, the sanctuaries in which exploded…
Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Close in meaning to University of Aberdeen; the term itself is not named.
Philosophers who discussed University of Aberdeen
- Antony Flew
- Alexander Bain (philosopher)
- Richard Price
- Richard Dawkins
- Richard Swinburne
- Thomas Reid
- Crispin Wright
- Paul Tillich
- Gabriel Marcel
- Alvin Plantinga
- Hannah Arendt
- John Haldane (philosopher)
- Hans Driesch
- John Wisdom
- Jc Beall
- Thomas Davidson (philosopher)
- Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison
- David Novak
- Hector Boece
- Daniel Berlyne
- Andrew Baxter
- Carrie Ichikawa Jenkins
- George Stout
Related ideas
- Alexander Bain (philosopher)
- Marischal College
- Latin
- University of St Andrews
- University
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Architecture
- Oliver Cromwell
- James Macpherson
- Ossian
- Karl Barth
- University of Edinburgh
- Reader (academic rank)
- University of Cambridge
- Nobel Peace Prize
- James Clerk Maxwell
- Thomas Reid
- Petrus Ramus
- Edward Burnett Tylor
- Time (magazine)
- University of Oxford
- Gifford Lectures
- The Times
- University of Glasgow
Place in the tradition
Part of Frederick Copleston.