The Scottish Enlightenment shaped a new conception of history as a gradual and universal progress from savagery to civil society. Whereas women emancipated themselves from the yoke of male-masters, men in turn acquired polite manners and became civilized. Such a conception, however, presents problematic questions: why were the Americans still savage? Why was it that the Europeans only had completed all the stages of the historic process? Could modern societies escape the destiny of earlier empires and avoid decadence? (...) Was there a limit beyond which women's influence might result in dehumanization? The Scottish Enlightenment's legacy for modernity emerges here as a two-faced Janus, an unresolved tension between universalism and hierarchy, progress and the limits of progress. (shrink)

: In today’s political philosophy framework, it is commonplace to associate Adam Smith with akind of theory that ignores human dispositions and considers only the self-interested perspective ofindividuals. Although this view has been widely supported in different fields – viz Philosophy andEconomy, we consider this a biased interpretation. Using the Cambridge School orientation, we explainthe importance of historical background in reading Smith’s work to argue that Smith’s writings should beinterpreted within the Scottish Enlightenment context. From this contextual approach, (...) it is possible tosustain an integrated reading of Smith’s books The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and An Inquiryinto the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations (WN). This reading leads to a more faithfulinterpretation of Smith’s idea that the agent in society is morally engaged in socio-economic relations.Once this hypothesis is confirmed, we will defend a systematic analysis of Smith’s philosophy arguingthat Smith’s philosophy is a holistic system, in what we call a tripartite theory. (shrink)

Stephen Buckle - The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:3 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.3 404-405 Book Review The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation Paul Wood, editor. The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays in Reinterpretation. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 399. Cloth, $75.00. This significant new collection of essays divides into three categories. The first, comprising essays by John Robertson, Charles Withers, and Richard (...) Sher, addresses the continuing controversy over the nature of the Scottish Enlightenment. The second—essays by Anita Guerrini, Fiona MacDonald, and John Wright—are more empirical, but all revolve around questions of medicine and science in the period. The third—essays by James.. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of the Scottish Enlightenment present the half-century or so before 1750 as, at best, a not-yet fully realised precursor to the era of Hume and Smith, at worst, a period of superstition and religious bigotry. This is the first book-length study to systematically challenge that notion. Instead, it argues that the era between approximately 1680 and 1745 was a 'First' Scottish Enlightenment, part of the continent-wide phenomenon of early Enlightenment and led by the (...) Jacobites, Episcopalians, and Catholics of north-eastern Scotland. It makes this argument through an intensive study of the dramatic changes in historiographical practice which took place in Scotland during this era, showing how the documentary scholarship of Jean Mabillon and the Maurists was eagerly received and rapidly developed in Scottish historical circles, resulting in the wholesale demolition of the older, Humanist myths of Scottish origins and their replacement with the foundations of our modern understanding of early Scottish history. This volume accordingly challenges many of the truisms surrounding seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Scottish history, pushing back against notions of pre-Enlightenment Scotland as backward, insular, and intellectually impoverished and mapping a richly polymathic, erudite, and transnational web of scholars, readers, and polemicists. It highlights the enduring cultural links with France and argues for the central importance of Scotland's two principal religious minorities--Episcopalians and Catholics--in the growth of Enlightenment thinking. As such, it makes a major intervention in the intellectual and cultural histories of Scotland, early modern Europe, and the Enlightenment itself. (shrink)

In his lengthy introduction, Alexander Broadie emphasizes not only the diversity of intellectual discussion taking place in Scotland, but also the European ...

Robert Wallace (1697–1771) was a leading minister of the Church of Scotland, but he remains a largely overlooked figure in the literature. Nevertheless, his participation in philosophical and theological debates offers a glimpse of the complex positions of the Scottish clergy – and of Scottish moderation on its own terms. Wallace’s moderation was evident, for example, in his opposition both to radical deism and orthodox dogmatism. Yet what makes Wallace’s case particularly interesting is that he described himself as (...) a ‘moderate freethinker’ in a letter to David Hume, while distinguishing elsewhere the ‘moderate’ and ‘sober’ freethinkers from the dangerously sceptical ones. Exploring his consistent statements on this issue in various writings throughout his career, this article investigates the self-identified moderation of Wallace – in opposition, for example, to his rival freethinker William Dudgeon – and thus the clergy’s attempt to use this category in the shaping of their vision of the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the writers of eighteenth century Scotland played a key role in shaping the early practice of social science. This paper examines how this ‘Scottish’ contribution to the Enlightenment generation of social science was shaped by the fascination with unintended consequences. From Adam Smith's invisible hand to Hume's analysis of convention, through Ferguson's sociology, and Millar's discussion of rank, by way of Robertson's View of Progress, the concept of unintended consequences pervades the writing of (...) the period. The paper argues that the idea of unintended order shapes the understanding of the purpose of theoretical social science that emerges from the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

The paper focuses on the mutual interaction as well as the impact of the Scottish Enlightenment on the formation of the Enlightenment in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. It focuses on the relationship between the work of Adam Smith and Semyon Efimovich Desnitskii, who, thanks to Desnitskii’s studies at the University of Glasgow, got to know each other as teacher and student. The central point of their interaction is the issues of the philosophy of (...) history based on natural-law assumptions and focus on understanding the formation of history, culture, citizenship, and social transformations through morality and law. The paper examines Desnitskii’s ideas on the stages of human coexistence in which Smith’s concept is projected. The paper is not only an attempt to compare these concepts, but it also characterizes Desnitskii’s interest in adapting the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment to Russian reality and needs and using them in the environment of the advancing feudal empire, to which Desnitskii wants to contribute with his work. (shrink)

SummaryThis article reconstructs a significant historical alternative to the theories of ‘cosmopolitan’ or ‘liberal’ patriotism often associated with the Scottish Enlightenment. Instead of focusing on the work of Andrew Fletcher, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume or Adam Smith, this study concentrates on the theories of sociability, patriotism and international rivalry elaborated by Adam Ferguson and Henry Home, Lord Kames. Centrally, the article reconstructs both thinkers' shared perspective on what I have called ‘unsociable’ or ‘agonistic’ patriotism, an eighteenth-century idiom which (...) saw international rivalship, antagonism, and even war as crucial in generating political cohesion and sustaining moral virtue. Placing their thinking in the context of wider eighteenth-century debates about sociability and state formation, the article's broader purpose is to highlight the centrality of controversies about human sociability to eighteenth-century debates about the nature of international relations. (shrink)

David Hume, Adam Smith, William Robertson, Adam Ferguson, Lord Kames, John Millar, James Dunbar and Gilbert Stuart were at the heart of Scottish Enlightenment thought. This introductory survey offers the student a clear, accessible interpretation and synthesis of the social thought of these historically significant thinkers. Organised thematically, it takes the student through their accounts of social institutions, their critique of individualism, their methodology, their views of progress and of moral and cultural values. By taking human sociality as (...) their premise, the book shows how they produced important analyses of historical change, politics and morality, together with an assessment of their own commercial society. (shrink)

Cet article examine les défis épistémologiques actuels de l’économie à travers le prisme de l’épistémologie des Lumières écossaises. Smith et Hume s’étaient concentrés sur la manière dont les connaissances (provisoires et incertaines) étaient formulées, en examinant comment des circonstances différentes engendrent et soutiennent différentes théories et approches. Sur cette base, nous explorons le discours actuel sur la manière dont les économistes doivent aborder les défis épistémologiques des situations de crise et leurs causes.

Scotland has played an immense role in European high culture through the centuries, and among its cultural links none have been greater than those with France. This book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the 18th century, the Age of Enlightenment.

The third collection in this series includes the same combination of scarce and not so well-known texts as well as more important and popular works.

The term ‘Scottish Enlightenment’ annoys some Scottish historians, because to them it seems to suggest that a state of unenlightenment prevailed in Scotland before the mideighteenth century, but ‘enlightenment’ when used by the historian of ideas is simply a technical term to describe certain aspects of eighteenth-century thought. The trouble is in defining precisely what aspects of eighteenth-century thought it is meant to describe. Different people study the eighteenth century Scottish thinkers for different reasons; for (...) Professor Pocock, for example, they belong to the tradition of ‘civic humanism’ and constitute one of his Machiavellian moments. But they are more widely known nowadays for the modernity and sophistication of their social theory. (shrink)

The story of the end of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783, is linked with that of the founding of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland and the Royal Society of Edinburgh , both of which were given Royal Charters sealed on 6 May 1783. It is a story which has been admirably told by Steven Shapin. He persuasively argued that the P.S.E. was a casualty of bitter quarrels rooted in local Edinburgh politics, in personal animosities and in disputes (...) about the control of cultural property and intellectual leadership. In all this he was surely correct just as he was in finding the principal actors in this controversy to be: David Erskine, 11th Earl of Buchan; the Reverend Dr John Walker, Professor of Natural History in Edinburgh University; Dr William Cullen, Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine and Vice-President of the P.S.E.; Mr William Smellie, Printer to the Society of Antiquaries; Henry Home, Lord Kames, S.C.J. and President of the P.S.E.; Sir George Clerk-Maxwell, Vice-President of the P.S.E.; John Robison, Professor of Natural Philosophy and Secretary to the P.S.E.; Edinburgh University's Principal, William Robertson; the Curators of the Advocates Library: Ilay Campbell, Robert Blair, Alexander Abercromby, Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Public Law; Henry Dundas, Lord Advocate and M.P. for Midlothian. In a peripheral way, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons were probably also involved; so too were Lord Buchan's brothers, Henry and Thomas Erskine, Foxite Whigs who opposed Dundas politically. Henry Erskine displaced Dundas as Lord Advocate in August 1783. After the change of ministry on 18 December 1783 he was ousted, but became Dean of the Faculty of Advocates in 1785. National as well as burgh politics touched these disputes and gave the parties of the Erskines and Dundas and his friends some leverage in London. (shrink)

The most arresting aspect of the Scottish Enlightenment is its conception of commercial society as a distinct and distinctive social formation. Christopher Berry explains why Enlightenment thinkers considered commercial society to be wealthier and freer than earlier forms, and charts the contemporary debates and tensions between Enlightenment thinkers that this idea raised. The book analyses the full range of literature on the subject, from key works like Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations', David Hume's 'Essays and Treatises (...) on Several Subjects' and Adam Ferguson's 'Essay on the History of Civil Society' to lesser-known works such as Robert Wallace's 'Dissertation on Numbers of Mankind'. (shrink)

This major contribution to the history of philosophy provides the most comprehensive guide to modern natural law theory available, sets out the full background to liberal ideas of rights and contractarianism, and offers an extensive study of the Scottish Enlightenment. The time span covered is considerable: from the natural law theories of Grotius and Suarez in the early seventeenth century to the American Revolution and the beginnings of utilitarianism. After a detailed survey of modern natural law theory, the (...) book focuses on the Scottish Enlightenment and its European and American connections. Knud Haakonssen explains the relationship between natural law and civic humanist republicanism, and he shows the relevance of these ideas for the understanding of David Hume and Adam Smith. The result is a completely revised background to modern ideas of liberalism and communitarianism. (shrink)

Most academic philosophers and intellectual historians are familiar with the major historical figures and intellectual movements coming out of Scotland in the 18 th Century. These scholars are also familiar with the works of Immanuel Kant and his influence on Western thought. But with the exception of discussion examining David Hume’s influence on Kant’s epistemology, metaphysics, and moral theory, little attention has been paid to the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s philosophy. _Kant and The (...) class='Hi'>Scottish Enlightenment_ aims to fill this perceived gap in the literature and provides a starting point for future discussions looking at the influence of Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Francis Hutcheson, and other Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s philosophy. The chapters are laid out according to a natural progression of ideas beginning with the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s moral thought, including the role of feelings, reason, and religion. From there, the discussion moves to an examination of the relationship between truth, freedom, and responsibility in the texts coming out of the Scottish Enlightenment and its connection to Kant’s metaphysics and aesthetics. The volume concludes with a discussion of the influence of Scottish Enlightenment thinkers on Kant’s anthropology. This book will be of interest to Kant scholars as well as philosophers and intellectual historians working in the history of eighteenth-century philosophy. (shrink)

Common sense philosophy was one of the Scottish Enlightenment's most original intellectual products. The nine specially written essays in this volume explore the philosophical and historical significance of this school of thought, recovering the ways in which it developed during the long eighteenth century.

This excellent collection of essays on Scottish common sense philosophy arose from the 2014 annual conference for the British Society for the History of Philosophy at The University of Edinburgh. It explores how common sense philosophy emerged during the eighteenth century in response to the ‘Ideal Theory.’ The selected chapters are complementary, offering insight into the philosophical and historical importance of common sense philosophy as well as underlining the breadth of research in the history of Scottish Philosophy.The collection (...) begins and ends with essays that consider under-researched aspects of Scottish Philosophy. It is widely perceived that Reid developed common sense via his reaction to Hume’s... (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe Scottish Enlightenment has long been identified with abolitionism because of the writings of the moral and economic philosophers and the absence of slaves in Scotland itself. However, Scots were disproportionately represented in the ownership, management, and especially medical treatment of slaves in the British Caribbean. Sugar and cotton flowed into Glasgow and young, educated Scots looking for work as traders, bookkeepers, doctors made the return trip back to the Caribbean to manage the plantations. Chemically trained doctors and (...) agriculturalists tested their theories in the plantations and developed new theories based on their experimentation on the land and slaves. In foregrounding the participation of Scottish trained chemists in the practice of slavery, I argue that the development of eighteenth-century chemistry and the broader intellectual Enlightenment were inextricably entangled with the economic Improvement Movement and the colonial economy of the British slave trade. (shrink)

Three professors at Glasgow University in the eighteenth century argued that the economic aspects of slavery were the most likely to see the demise of the institution of slavery. Adam Smith was the most forceful of the three, and on empirical grounds he asserted that although slavery might appear cheap, in reality it was the dearest form of labour, due to there being no incentive for slaves to work, unlike free waged labour's prospect of reward. In addition, slaves were neither (...) innovative nor inventive and did not contribute to growth and prosperity. Linking the question of slavery to the size of population, Hume, Robert Wallace, Sir James Steuart and Montesquieu made significant contributions to the debate, comparing the populations of the Ancient World with those of the eighteenth century. The end of the institution was brought about in no small measure by the arguments of the philosophers, when slavery was legally abolished in the countries of Europe and in America. (shrink)

This study examines the leading early nineteenth-century Scottish moral philosopher Dugald Stewart’s discussion of the origin and development of religion. Stewart developed his account in his final work, The Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (1828), in an effort to show that the fact that polytheism was the first religion of humankind does not undermine the truth of monotheism. He wrote in response to similar discussions presented in David Hume’s “Natural History of Religion” (1757), which argued (...) for the primacy of polytheism, and Stewart’s old moral philosophy tutor Adam Ferguson’s Principles of Moral and Political Science (1792), which argued for the primacy of monotheism. Stewart accepted the conclusions of the Scots’ enlightened study of religion, which argued for truth of Hume’s account, but aimed to reassert many of the natural theological arguments about the naturalness of religion that the “Natural History” had challenged. Stewart’s discussion acts as a useful way by which we can assess the achievement of the literati’s study of religion. (shrink)

The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment offers a philosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century movement that has been profoundly influential on western culture. A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Colin Maclaurin and other Scottish thinkers, in fields including philosophy, natural theology, economics, anthropology, natural science and law. In addition, the contributors relate the Scottish Enlightenment to its historical context and assess its impact and legacy (...) in Europe, America and beyond. The result is a comprehensive and accessible volume that illuminates the richness, the intellectual variety and the underlying unity of this important movement. It will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology, literature and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Scottish Enlightenment political thought shows permanent tensions between commerce and liberty, passions and interests, wealth and virtue, as a now classical literature has shown. The Scottish literati share the conception that civil society is a product of history, in contrast with barbarism, while giving diverse roles and meanings to passions and virtues. On the one hand, by his criticism of modern commercial politics, Adam Ferguson stood for the classic virtue of antiquity. On the other, David Hume, Adam (...) Smith and John Millar, who conceived selfish passions as the driving forces of history and progress, emphasised politeness and sociability, considered as the new, and pacific, characteristics of commercial modernity. This article highlights their contrasting views and points out the huge debate within the Scottish. (shrink)

This collection of essays provides a comprehensive view of the economic thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. Organized as a chronological account of the rise and progress of political economy in eighteenth century Scotland, each chapter discusses the way in which the moral and economic improvement of the Scottish nation became a common concern. Contributors not only explore the economic discourses of David Hume, James Steuart and Adam Smith but also consider the neglected economic writings of Andrew Fletcher, (...) Robert Wallace, Francis Hutcheson, William Robertson, John Millar and Dugald Stewart. This book addresses the question of how these economic writings interacted with the moral, political and historical arguments of the time and shows how contemporary issues related to the union with England, natural jurisprudence, classical republicanism and manners and civilization all contained an economic dimension. Key chapters include: The ancient modern controversy in the Scottish Enlightenment The 'Scottish Triangle' in the shaping of political economy: David Hume, Sir James Steuart and Adam Smith Civilization and history in Lord Kames and William Robertson Adam Smith in Japan This view of the origin of economic science in Britain is markedly different from traditional accounts and will be of interest to economic, political and social historians. (shrink)

Given Kant's seemingly dismissive attitude toward Scottish philosophers of common sense—in the Prolegomena, he famously describes how painful it is to see them miss Hume's point—one might expect that a book titled Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment would be a rather slim volume. However, as Manfred Kuehn in Scottish Common Sense in Germany and elsewhere has made abundantly clear, Scottish philosophy played a large role in eighteenth-century Germany, and was a significant influence on Kant. The (...) present volume, which stands as a Festschrift for Kuehn, admirably follows on this path, and the nineteen papers collected here trace a number of interesting and surprising ways in which Scottish philosophy connects to Kant.... (shrink)

Wealth and Virtue reassesses the remarkable contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment to the formation of modern economics and to theories of capitalism. Its unique range indicates the scope of the Scottish intellectual achievement of the eighteenth century and explores the process by which the boundaries between economic thought, jurisprudence, moral philosophy and theoretical history came to be established. Dealing not only with major figures like Hume and Smith, there are also studies of lesser known thinkers like Andrew (...) Fletcher, Gershom Carmichael, Lord Kames and John Millar as well as of Locke in the light of eighteenth century social theory, the intellectual culture of the University of Edinburgh in the middle of the eighteenth century and of the performance of the Scottish economy on the eve of the publication of the Wealth of Nations. While the scholarly emphasis is on the rigorous historical reconstruction of both theory and context, Wealth and Virtue directly addresses itself to modern political theorists and economists and throws light on a number of major focal points of controversy in legal and political philosophy. (shrink)

The world in which the Scottish Enlightenment took shape -- Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll (1682-1761) : patronage and the creation of the Scottish Enlightenment -- How many Scots were enlightened? -- What did eighteenth-century Scottish students read? -- Our excellent and never to be forgotten friend : David Hume (26 April 1711- 25 August 1776) -- Hume's intellectual development : part II, 1711-1762 -- Hume's histories -- Hume's economics -- Numbering the medics -- (...) Numbers and money -- Who were they? -- The émigrés as they appear in the American sample. (shrink)

An important figure in the natural law tradition and in the Scottish Enlightenment, Gershom Carmichael defended a strong theory of rights and drew attention to Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke. Gershom Carmichael was a teacher and writer who played an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His philosophy focused on the natural rights of individuals--the natural right to defend oneself, to own the property on which one has labored, and to services contracted for (...) with others. Carmichael argued that slavery is incompatible with the rights of men and citizens, and he believed that subjects have the right to resist rulers who exceed the limits of their powers. Although he appealed to the authority of Grotius and Locke, the grounds on which he defended natural rights were distinctively his own. He drew upon the Reformed or Presbyterian theology to propose that, in respecting the natural rights of individuals, one shows one’s reverence for God’s creation. Inasmuch as all of mankind longs for lasting happiness, which can be found only in worship of or reverence for God, such reverence is the natural law which obliges all to respect the rights of all. Natural Rights includes Supplements and Observations on Pufendorf (1724), Natural Theology (1729), Logic (1722), two theses, and a manuscript on teaching, all in English for the first time. Gershom Carmichael (1672-1729) was the first professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, preceding Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid. James Moore is Professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Montreal. Michael Silverthorne is Honorary University Fellow in the School of Classics at the University of Exeter. Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England. (shrink)

“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”—_Adam Ferguson_ During the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and other lesser thinkers described a theory of spontaneously generated social order. Ronald Hamowy discusses their contributions to this significant area of social theory, (...) noting that the revolutionary aspect of these philosophers’ thoughts was “the proposition that social phenomena of a high degree of intricacy are not the product of intentional design.” Hamowy shows that Hume is best known for his application of the theory to justice, developing it most thoroughly in the _Treatise of Human Nature. _Adam Smith’s first treatment of it is in the _Theory of Moral Sentiment, _published before the significant _Wealth of Nations. _There Smith uses it to explain the development of general rules that compose the moral fabric of societies. All of these thinkers used their notion of spontaneously generated social order to explain systems of moral rules and social systems. In addition Adam Ferguson and David Hume applied the theory to language, as well as to economic development. (shrink)