{{Short description|Scottish philosopher and controversialist}} '''Adam Steuart''' (Stuart, Stewart) (1591–1654) was a Scottish philosopher and controversialist.
==Life== He became professor at the Academy of Saumur in 1617.<ref name = Pyle>Andrew Pyle (editor), ''Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers'' (2000), article ''Steuart, Adam'', pp. 770-2.</ref> In 1644, he was in London, where he engaged in propaganda for the Presbyterians against the Independents. The first attack on the ''Apologeticall Narration'' of the Five Dissenting Brethren<ref>February 1644, February 1644, ''An Apologetical Narration, humbly submitted to the Honorable Houses of Parliament'', by Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Sidrach Simpson, Jeremiah Burroughs, and William Bridge; http://www.apuritansmind.com/WCF/McMahonHistoryWestminsterAssembly.htm {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090330054831/http://www.apuritansmind.com/WCF/McMahonHistoryWestminsterAssembly.htm |date=2009-03-30 }}.</ref> was Steuart's.<ref>''Some Observations and Annotations upon the Apologetical Narration'' (1644).</ref> The ''Second Part of the Duply to M. S. alias Two Brethren'' addressed the issue of religious tolerance, which he classed with depravity.<ref name = Pyle/><ref>Wallace St John, ''The Contest for Liberty of Conscience in England'' (1900), p. 81.</ref> It was answered by John Goodwin.<ref>''A short ansvver to A. S. alias Adam Stewart's second part of his overgrown duply to the two brethren''</ref> Steuart is mentioned (as A. S.) in John Milton's poem ''On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament'', a caudate sonnet, along with Samuel Rutherford and Thomas Edwards (and, implicitly, Robert Baillie).<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-milton.htm |title=Archived copy |access-date=2009-01-19 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100613034002/http://history.wisc.edu/sommerville/367/367-milton.htm |archive-date=2010-06-13 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>William Bridges Hunter, ''Milton's English Poetry: Being Entries from A Milton Encyclopedia'' (1986), pp. 101-3.</ref><ref>David Loewenstein, ''The War Against Heresy in Milton's England'', p. 197, in Albert C. Labriola (editor), ''Milton Studies'' (2007).</ref>
In 1644 he took up a position as Professor of Physics at the University of Leiden .<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.lorentz.leidenuniv.nl/history/fles/professors.html|title = Professors of physics in Leiden (1582-1950)}}</ref> With Jacobus Triglandius and Jacobus Revius he attacked Cartesianism there.<ref>Harold John Cook, ''Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age'' (2007), p. 260.</ref> In what is now known as the Leiden Crisis,<ref>Theo Verbeek, ''Descartes and the Dutch: Early Reactions to Cartesian Philosophy, 1637-1650'' (1992), Chapter 3.</ref><ref>http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2002-1015-122056/c4.pdf {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927000425/http://igitur-archive.library.uu.nl/dissertations/2002-1015-122056/c4.pdf |date=2011-09-27 }}, note p. 16.</ref> coming to a head in 1647, he opposed Adriaan Heereboord, over whom he had been brought in, and presided at a rowdy debate with the Leiden Cartesian Johannes de Raey. René Descartes himself commented on Steuart, in ''Notae in Programma Quoddam'' (1648), to which Steuart replied in ''Notae in notas nobilissimi cujusdam viri in ipsius theses de Deo'' (1648).<ref>Roger Ariew, Marjorie Grene, Marjorie Glicksman Grene, ''Descartes and His Contemporaries: Meditations, Objections, and Replies'' (1995), p. 31.</ref> Steuart's party, the proponents of continuing to teach along the lines of Aristotelian philosophy, won a temporary victory.<ref>Daniel Garber, Michael Ayers, ''The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-century Philosophy'' Volume II (2003), p. 1458.</ref><ref>Desmond Clarke, ''Descartes: A Biography'' (2006), p. 350</ref><ref>Willem Frijhoff, Marijke Spies, ''Dutch Culture in a European Perspective: 1650: Hard-won unity'' (2004), pp. 303-5.</ref><ref>Roger Kenneth French, Andrew Wear (editors), ''The Medical Revolution of the Seventeenth Century'' (1989), p. 64.</ref>
He was attacked by the theologian Samuel Maresius, during further controversy, as heterodox. He died in Leiden.<ref name = Pyle/>
==Notes== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Steuart, Adam}} Category:1591 births Category:1654 deaths Category:Scottish Presbyterians Category:17th-century Scottish philosophers Category:Academic staff of Leiden University