John Major

John Major (or Mair, c. 1467-1550) was a Scottish philosopher, theologian and historian, and one of the most followed teachers of his day. Trained and active in Paris, where he taught for decades, he shaped late scholastic thought and influenced later Spanish thinkers such as Vitoria, Soto and Celaya, who learned from him.

He was born at Gleghornie, near North Berwick, and studied at Haddington before leaving for Paris around 1490-1493. There he took his degrees, taught at the Collège de Montaigu and the Sorbonne, and worked under Jan Standonck. He returned to Scotland in 1518 to lead the University of Glasgow, and later went back to Paris. Late in life he became Provost of St Salvator's College in St Andrews, where he died.

His thought moves between logic, natural philosophy and theology. He relied on the close analysis of terms, on the nominalist tradition inherited from John Buridan, and on a sceptical attitude toward the humanists, whose methods he thought less rigorous. In politics he argued that power rests with the people and that councils may stand above the pope. In 1510 he held that the indigenous peoples of the Americas had political and property rights that could not be overridden without compensation.

In his historical work, the History of Greater Britain (De Gestis Scotorum, 1521), he tried to separate myth from documentary evidence, an approach that later Scottish historians such as Hector Boece followed. His influence reached logic, history and international law, though his dry, difficult Latin style gradually lessened his fame.