Background
Dicsone was born in Perthshire, and studied at the University of Street Andrews.
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Alexander Dicsone
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University of Street Andrews.
Career
He is known also as the leading British disciple of Giordano Bruno. He used the pseudonym Heius Scepsius. lieutenant is considered probable that they met in this period, though not certain.
Dicsone in any case was then in England, and became the outstanding disciple of Bruno in England and Scotland.
He is mentioned in Bruno"s dialogues, along with another British disciple ("Smith") who remains unidentified. Bruno and Dickson were part of the intellectual circle of Sir Philip Sidney.
Dicsone opposed Ramism, and was attacked in the Antidicsonus by "G.P." Now considered to be by William Perkins, it has also been attributed to Gerard Peeters. Walter Ong considered this dispute one of the major controversies over Ramism.
Frances Yates argued that it should be considered as "over-lapping" with the debate of Bruno with the Aristotelians at Oxford, also in 1584.
With Bruno and Dicsone, Perkins mentioned in his dedicatory epistle Metrodorus of Scepsis and Cosma Rosselli. The memory technique taught by Dicsone was questioned by Hugh Plat in 1594. lieutenant has been suggested that Dicsone was led to Bruno"s memory theory by the requirement for memorable textbooks.
By 1588 Dicsone was working for Francis Hay, 9th Earl of Erroll.
Hay was a Catholic and rebel, and Dicsone acted as a go-between for his master and the Scottish Kirk. He was mixture of spy and double agent, a position eventually untenable.
Dicsone was in trouble with James VI of Scotland for carrying letters from Charles Neville, 6th Earl of Westmorland, an English Catholic in exile. He declared himself a Catholic by the same year, 1591.
He went on further continental travels, in the Catholic interest, with Peter Lowe.
In the later 1590s James VI recruited him, and Dicsone wrote in James"s causes. He is last heard of trying to bring John Davidson to heel, in 1603. Dicsone had died by the time an elegy on him by Thomas Murray appeared in 1604.
