Scottish Enlightenment

A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson, Colin Maclaurin and other Scottish thinkers, in philosophy, natural theology, economics, anthropology, natural science and law. The contributors also relate the Scottish Enlightenment to its historical context and assess its impact and legacy in Europe, America and beyond. The volume is of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology, literature and the history of ideas.

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.

Drawing on his encyclopedic knowledge of Scottish history, William Ferguson traces the origin of Scottish national identity, and people's perceptions of it, from earliest times to the present day. From the Scottish Origin Legend, expressed in the works of the medieval chroniclers, to the ideas of contemporary historians, Ferguson provides a guide to Gaelic kingship, George Buchanan, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, James Macpherson, Goths versus Gaels, and George Chalmers.

Short-listed for the Philip Abrams Memorial Prize 2003Museums have been the subject of intense debate in recent years and their history and development raise important questions. What was 'modern' about the art museum? Why did museums emerge when and where they did? How were museums involved with the development of modern art worlds? What was the relationship between art galleries and their audiences and who were the key people involved with their inception?Focusing on the role of national art galleries in continental Europe, England and Scotland, this book explores in depth the interrelationship between artistic and exhibitionary forms, as well as between power and governance in those places where the roots of modern culture were being laid most visibly. Drawing upon debates concerning modernity, Prior investigates how the boundaries of art and culture have been determined within the museum world. In particular, he looks at the interface between the project of the nation and the gallery and how galleries were involved in making certain social groups or bodies feel 'at home' and others excluded.

These volumes offer the first comprehensive study of republicanism as a shared European heritage. Professors Skinner and van Gelderen have assembled an internationally distinguished set of contributors whose studies highlight the richness and diversity of European republican traditions. Volume I looks at anti-monarchism in Europe, humanist theories of citizenship and the constitutional nature of the republic. Volume II is devoted to the study of key republican values --liberty, virtue, politeness and toleration. It also addresses the role of women and relationship between republicanism and the rise of a commercial society.

In the Scottish universities, an Enlightenment in philosophy, which George III dubbed "the Scotch Metaphysics", continued unabated from the eighteenth and throughout the nineteenth century. This book brings out how different the way of doing philosophy in Scotland was during this period by comparison with how it was pursued in England. In Scotland, as on the continent of Europe, philosophy was a central subject in the universities, whereas in England, except for a perfunctory application in faculties of divinity, it flourished only outside the walls of the academy.

Focusing on the works of Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Sir William Hamilton, Thomas Brown and James Frederick Ferrier, The Scotch Metaphysics offers a definitive account of an important philosophical movement and represents a ground-breaking contribution to scholarship in the area. It will be essential reading for philosophers and anyone interested in the history of philosophical thought.

This is a study of how political ideas travel across languages and cultures. It examines the reception in Germany of the civic theories of the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson, and shows how German intellectuals misread his work, but in a way which opened up many fruitful insights.

In his writings, David Hume set out to bridge the gap between the learned world of the academy and the marketplace of polite society. This collection, drawing largely on his Essays Moral, Political, and Literary (1776 edition), which was even more popular than his famous Treatise of Human Nature, comprehensively shows how far he succeeded. From `Of Essay Writing' to `Of the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences' Hume embraces a staggering range of social, cultural, political, demographic, and historical concerns. With the scope typical of the Scottish Enlightenment, he charts the state of civil society, manners, morals, and taste, and the development of political economy in the mid-eighteenth century. These essays represent not only those areas where Hume's arguments are revealingly typical of his day, but also where he is strikingly innovative in a period already famous for its great thinkers.

The essays in this collection examine the fundamental issues related to the rise of the political economy in eighteenth-century Scotland against the backdrop of the Scottish enlightenment. The book demonstrates the importance of the rise and progress of economic discourse as an integral foundation of the social sciences of the Scottish enlightenment.