View source for Robert Balfour (philosopher)

{{Short description|Scottish philosopher}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
'''Robert Balfour''' (c. 1553–1621; known also as '''Balforeus''') was a Scottish [[philosopher]].

He was educated at the [[University of St Andrews]] and the [[University of Paris]]. He was for many years principal of the [[College of Guienne]] at [[Bordeaux]].

==Works==

His great work is his ''Commentarii in Organum Logicum Aristotelis'' (Bordeaux, 1618); the copy in the [[British Museum]] contains a number of highly [[eulogistic poem]]s in honour of Balfour, who is described as ''Graium aemulus acer.'' Balfour was one of the scholars who contributed to spread over Europe the fame of the ''praefervidum ingenium Scotorum.'' His contemporary, [[Thomas Dempster]], called him the "phoenix of his age, a philosopher profoundly skilled in the Greek and [[Latin]] languages, and a mathematician worthy of being compared with the ancients."

His ''Cleomedis meteora,'' with notes and Latin translation, was reprinted at [[Leiden]] as late as 1820.

==References==
*{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Balfour, Robert}} which in turn cites:
** Dempster, ''Historia Ecclesiastica Gent. Scotorum''.
** Irving, ''Lives of the Scottish Writers''.
** Anderson, ''Scottish Nation'', i. 217.
*[[Andrew Pyle (philosopher)|Andrew Pyle]] (editor), ''Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British Philosophers'' (2000), article pp.&nbsp;54–5.

==Further reading==
* {{Eminent Scotsmen|Balfour, Robert|1|115–16}}
* {{cite DNB|wstitle=Balfour, Robert (1550?-1625?)}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Balfour, Robert}}
[[Category:1550s births]]
[[Category:1621 deaths]]
[[Category:16th-century Scottish philosophers]]
[[Category:Latin commentators on Aristotle]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of St Andrews]]
[[Category:Clan Balfour|Robert, philosopher]]
[[Category:Scottish expatriates in France]]
[[Category:University of Paris alumni]]
[[Category:17th-century Scottish philosophers]]


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