Donald Livingston is a former Professor of Philosophy at
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
and a
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment phil ...
scholar. In 2003 he
founded the Abbeville Institute, which is devoted to the study of
Southern culture
The culture of the Southern United States, Southern culture, or Southern heritage, is a subculture of the United States. The combination of its unique history and the fact that many Southerners maintain—and even nurture—an identity separate f ...
and
political ideas.
Early life and education
Livingston was raised in
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
.
He received his doctorate at
Washington University
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
in 1965. He has been a
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
fellow and has been on the editorial board of ''Hume Studies'' and
''Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture''. Livingston is a convert from
Anglicanism to the
Eastern Orthodox Church
The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops vi ...
. His wife Marie also received her Ph.D. in philosophy and has studied under
Edmund Gettier
Edmund Lee Gettier III (; October 31, 1927 – March 23, 2021) was an American philosopher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He is best known for his short 1963 article "Is Justified True Belief Knowledge?", which has generated an exten ...
and
Alasdair MacIntyre.
Livingston is a member of the
Sons of Confederate Veterans
The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohis ...
.
Career
After teaching in several venues, Livingston became a professor of philosophy at
Emory University
Emory University is a private research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Founded in 1836 as "Emory College" by the Methodist Episcopal Church and named in honor of Methodist bishop John Emory, Emory is the second-oldest private institution of ...
in
Atlanta
Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,715 ...
, Georgia.
Philosophical views
He supports the compact theory of the United States, with its concomitant provisions for corporate resistance,
nullification
Nullification may refer to:
* Nullification (U.S. Constitution), a legal theory that a state has the right to nullify any federal law deemed unconstitutional with respect to the United States Constitution
* Nullification Crisis, the 1832 confront ...
, and
secession
Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics le ...
. He views the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revoluti ...
not as a revolution but an act of secession,
which has raised for some the concern "that characterizing the favorably-viewed American Revolution as a secession from Britain confers legitimacy on the later attempt by the Confederate states to secede from the Union (Livingston 1998)°—an attempt that, by most contemporary perspectives, wants for legitimacy (Simpson 2012)."
Chris Hedges has called him "one of the intellectual godfathers of the secessionist movement."
Abbeville Institute
In 2003, Livingston was instrumental in founding the Abbeville Institute.
According to its website, the Institute is "an association of scholars in higher education devoted to a critical study of what is true and valuable in the Southern tradition". The Institute is named for the town of
Abbeville, South Carolina, often regarded as the birthplace of the Confederacy.
The Institute adopted as part of its mission statement the following by slavery historian
Eugene Genovese
Eugene Dominic Genovese (May 19, 1930 – September 26, 2012) was an American historian of the American South and American slavery. He was noted for bringing a Marxist perspective to the study of power, class and relations between planters and ...
: "Rarely these days, even on Southern campuses, is it possible to acknowledge the achievements of white people in the South;"
once a partisan of the
Far Left, Genovese had left
Marxism
Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialectical ...
for
conservatism
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilizati ...
.
As of 2009, the Abbeville Institute had a total of 64 associated scholars from various colleges and disciplines.
It operates an annual summer school for graduate students and an annual scholars' conference.
It focuses particularly on issues of secession, which its scholars believe is a topic excluded from mainstream academia.
In 2010, it held a conference on secession and nullification.
Notable faculty include
Thomas DiLorenzo
Thomas James DiLorenzo (; born August 8, 1954) identifies as an adherent of the Austrian School of economics. He is a research fellow at The Independent Institute, a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute,Faculty Directoryan, ''accessed ...
and
Clyde Wilson.
The Abbeville Institute has developed a press, an Abbeville Institute Review, and a blog, all to communicate its scholars' work.
Books
*''Hume's Philosophy of Common Life'' (1984)
*''Philosophical Melancholy and Delirium: Hume's Pathology of Philosophy'' (1998)
Further reading
*
*
*
*
References
External links
Abbeville InstituteOfficial website
Hume and the Secession of the American ColoniesNew Media, UFM
Socratic Dialogue Hume’s Moral PhilosophyNew Media, UFM
December 1996
{{DEFAULTSORT:Livingston, Donald
Living people
Washington University in St. Louis alumni
Emory University faculty
Philosophers from Georgia (U.S. state)
Hume scholars
Year of birth missing (living people)
Sons of Confederate Veterans