Scottish Enlightenment Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This article contributes to the reassessment of Scottish history and identity in light of the recovery of its connections with black Atlantic issues such as slavery and empire. The ‘paradox’ of the national bard seeking employment as a book-keeper on Jamaica remains an uncomfortable area for modern Scotland. This article considers Burns's biographical and textual (dis-)entanglement with the Caribbean in relation to the subsequent competition over his memory. It reads Robert Burns as a lieu de mémoire (Pierre Nora) that opens up a conflicted account of the nature of free labour ideology, slavery and abolition in the late eighteenth century.

Wer sich mit der Philosophie des Geistes beschäftigt, kommt an David Hume nicht vorbei. In seinem "Treatise of Human Nature" (1739/40) stellt er eine Konzeption von Selbst (self), Geist (mind) oder Seele (soul) vor, die einige Autoren aufgrund ihres unverhohlenen Naturalismus enthusiastisch feiern, während andere sie als reduktionistisch zurückweisen und für die „Existenz eines nicht-humeschen Selbst“ plädieren. Ein Grund für diese geteilte Einschätzung liegt vor allem in Humes Frontstellung gegen die von René Descartes in den "Meditationes de prima philosophia" (1641) wieder belebte Substanzmetaphysik. Weil wir nach Hume nur erkennen können, was uns in unserer Wahrnehmung (perception) gegeben ist, eine Substanz aber „völlig verschieden von einer Wahrnehmung“ ist, haben wir „keine Idee von einer Substanz.“

- by Heiner F. Klemme
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- Theory of Mind, Scottish Enlightenment, René Descartes, Personal Identity

The radical ideas of the French Revolution are generally regarded as the offspring of the theory of social contract. However, even though the Revolutionaries cherished Rousseau’s legacy, the period was not without instances in which this legacy could be subject to variation and the notion of social contract could be attributed, in a decidedly negative tone, less to Rousseau than to Hobbes. In this context, the present study of Jean-Baptiste Salaville’s L’Homme et la société, ou nouvelle théorie de la nature humaine et de l’état social (1799) demonstrates that the idea of natural sociability could provide an opportunity to elaborate a radical republican future without the notion of social contract. Salaville’s political vision, built on the tradition of natural jurisprudence, posited a new idea of the general will and empiricist legislation in the last days of the French Revolution.

- by Minchul Kim
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- Intellectual History, Social Contract Theory, Republicanism, Natural Law

Colin Kidd’s work offers an intellectual history of the ambiguous connection between Protestant theology and concepts of race since the early modern era. In the conclusion to the book, Kidd hints at the original point of departure for his research: he was driven by the “suspicion . . . that the dethroning of biblical authority was a necessary prelude to the emergence of modern racism” (271). The secular Enlightenment had opened the way to all sorts of horrors by intentionally or unintentionally
undermining the “message of universal brotherly love found in the New
Testament” (271). Yet in the course of his research, Kidd has to admit that the attractive simplicity of this hypothesis did not stand up to the pressure of the evidence. Rather than a quasi-Hegelian schema then, The Forging of Races offers a history of “illogical developments” (271). Kidd’s analysis demonstrates how different strains of Protestant theology both obstructed and enabled racial thought. He takes very seriously
the antiracist implications of the Christian doctrine of monogenesis, that is, the insistence on the essential equality and community of mankind derived from the belief in the divine creation of mankind from a single origin. But he also notes that the ambiguities of biblical exegesis generated contradictory interpretations, which in turn served as a crucible for racial thought. He suggests that lingering questions about the narrative of Genesis raised the possibility of multiple acts of creation—in short, the polygenesis of different races. These two opposing tendencies provide The Forging of Races with its fundamental drama and critical impetus.

Angesichts der wegweisenden Beiträge, die Autoren wie Platon, Aristoteles, Thomas von Aquin oder auch Thomas Hobbes zu der altehrwürdigen und immer aktuellen Debatte um die Gerechtigkeit geleistet haben, wären die Antworten, die David Hume auf die Frage nach dem Ursprung und der Natur der Gerechtigkeit gibt, vielleicht kaum der Rede wert, wären sie nicht so unspektakulär nüchtern. Die Brisanz von Humes Konzeption der Gerechtigkeit gründet auf seinem Naturalismus sans phrase und der aus ihm folgenden Definition der Gerechtigkeit als einer „künstlichen Tugend“ („artificial virtue“) . Die Gerechtigkeit beruht nach Hume weder allein auf der Vernunft, noch auf natürlichen Rechten, noch auf dem Willen einer Person. Weder hat Gott den Menschen mit ewigen und unveräußerlichen Rechten (John Locke) bzw. mit absolut bindenden Pflichten (Samuel von Pufendorf) geschaffen, noch entscheidet ein weltlicher Souverän darüber, was Recht und Gerechtigkeit sind (Thomas Hobbes). Die Gerechtigkeit wird nach Hume vielmehr durch einen Kunstgriff gestiftet, mit dem die Menschen auf die Unvollkommenheiten eines Lebens jenseits der „politischen Gesellschaft“ („political society“ ) reagieren. Die politische oder „bürgerliche Gesellschaft“ („civil society“ ) ist für den Menschen von Nutzen, weil sie seine Kraft vermehrt, seine Fähigkeiten steigert und seine Sicherheit garantiert . Anders formuliert: Der „öffentliche Nutzen [ist] der einzige Ursprung der Gerechtigkeit“ und „die Reflexion auf die nützlichen Folgen dieser Tugend [ist] die einzige Grundlage für ihr Verdienst“ .

- by Pierre Briant
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- Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, Alexander the Great, Indian Ocean Trade

The history of the Ferguson rifle purchased by the Royal Armouries from the William Keith Neal Collection in 2000.

Hayek is relatively silent on the issue of emotion. When he does discuss it, he critiques emotions in two main ways: the problematic desire to promote social justice, and the longing to return to tribal society. I argue that while Hayek seems to view emotions in a negative light, arguing that they have no place in political economy, his project depends on emotion. First, his references to the work of David Hume and Adam Smith, who discussed emotion extensively, suggest that there is space for emotion in his thought. Second, Hayek does not suffer from the pretense of reason. Finally, emotion is central for the kind of social coordination resulting in spontaneous order that Hayek praises. Arguing that emotions are non-rational processes, I position emotions as an important part of political economy more broadly because they facilitate relationships among individuals and therefore make social coordination through the market process possible. Understanding the complex nature of emotion in Hayek’s thought shows both that Hayek is not as strong a proponent of rationality as he is sometimes characterized, and that emotion is necessary for a free society and a robust political economy.

- by Brianne Wolf
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- Emotion, Political Economy, Scottish Enlightenment, Friedrich Hayek

A brief account of a translation experiment of the Scottish poet, historian, and fraud John Pinkerton presented in the context of the reception of Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski and his poetry in 18th century Scotland.
The file is the original paper presented at the conference in 2012. It was later published as “Neo-Latin Poetry in 18th Century Scotland - John Pinkerton Translates Maciej Kazimierz Sarbiewski”, in: Korzeniowska, Aniela and Izabela Szymańska (eds.) Scotland in Europe / Europe in Scotland: Links – Dialogues - Analogies. Warszawa: Semper, 2013, pp. 143-153. and the book is available at:
http://semper.istore.pl/pl,product,20162236,scotland,in,europe,europe,in,scotland.html

Common sense philosophy was one of eighteenth-century Scotland's most original intellectual products. It developed as a viable alternative to modern philosophical scepticism, known as the 'Ideal Theory' or 'the way of ideas'. The nine specially written essays in this volume explore the philosophical and historical significance of common sense philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment. Thomas Reid and David Hume feature prominently as influential authors of competing ideas in the history and philosophy of common sense. The contributors recover anticipations of Reid's version of common sense in seventeenth-century Scottish scholasticism; revaluate Reid's position in the realism versus sentimentalism dichotomy; shed new light on the nature of the 'constitution' in the anatomy of the mind; identify changes in the nature of sense perception throughout Reid's published and unpublished works; examine Reid on the non-theist implications of Hume's philosophy; show how 'polite' literature shaped James Beattie's version of common sense; reveal Hume's response to common sense philosophers; explore English criticisms of the Scottish 'school', and how Dugald Stewart's refashioning of common sense responded to a new age and the British reception of German Idealism. In recovering the ways in which Scottish common sense philosophy developed during the long eighteenth century, this volume takes an important step toward a more complete understanding of 'the Scottish philosophy' and British philosophy more broadly in the age of Enlightenment.

- by Charles Bradford Bow
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- History, Intellectual History, Philosophy, Metaphysics
- by Matthew Daniel Eddy
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- History, European History, Intellectual History, Literacy
- by Helen Wyld
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- Scottish Studies, Scottish Enlightenment, British watercolours, Picturesque

This article focuses on the alleged direct acquaintanceship between Condorcet and Adam Smith. Mistaken infor-mation about this issue was repeated many times in the literature of the late 1800s and 1900s. It is presumed that they met in France, during Smith’s journey there, chez Sophie de Grouchy. I will attempt to show that the meeting be-tween the two authors was not in fact arranged by Sophie de Grouchy, Condorcet’s wife, even though she was very interested in Smithian theories, especially about the category of “sympathy”, as confirmed by her French translation of the Theory of Moral Sentiments. My purpose is to demonstrate that Madame de Condorcet did never meet Smith and, as a result, she could not have introduced Condorcet to Smith. A greater degree of probability can be attributed to the version that indicates Turgot as the intermediary between Condorcet and Smith. In my opinion, not even this hypothesis is totally convincing, because neither Smith nor Condorcet ever talk about their meeting. Moreover, there is no evidence of correspondence between them.

- by Simona Pisanelli
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- Enlightenment, Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith, Condorcet

Notes on Royal Standard Lamp Oil as an early Edinburgh product, and the later life and work of local technologist William Young (1840-1907) eldest son of Selkirk and Dalkeith gas manager John Young. William Young's early work is outlined, his connections with the gasworks at Lasswade, Gibraltar, Musselburgh, Falkirk, Peebles and St Helens , his shale oil work at Clippens and Oakbank, his collaborations with Brash, Taylor, George Beilby, Fyfe and Glover, and the contractor John Dennis, his work on carburretted gasoline for lighting, oil-gas enrichment, and gas engines with Milne of Edinburgh. Extensive use is made of notes from Michael Cotteril, consulted for the exhibition.

- by Roger Kelly
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- History of Science, Scottish History, Japanese History, Scottish Enlightenment
- by Athanasia Glycofrydi Leontsini
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- Nationalism, Scottish Enlightenment, National Identity, David Hume

Hume refers to women as imaginative, compassionate, conversable, and delicate. While his appraisals of women seem disparate, I argue that they reflect a position about the distinctive role that Hume takes women to have in shaping and enforcing moral norms. On his view, I maintain, women provide us with the ideal model of a moral judge. I claim that Hume sees a tight connection between moral competency and those traits he identifies as feminine. Making this case requires getting clear on a number of concepts in Hume's philosophical toolbox-sympathy, compassion, imagination, etc.-and their relation to one another. The primary quality of a good moral judge, according to Hume, is a delicacy of taste. I show that Hume thinks of delicacy as a feminine skill that can only be developed in men imperfectly, thereby making women the ideal moral judges.

- by Getty Lustila
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- Aesthetics, Ethics, 17th Century & Early Modern Philosophy, Scottish Enlightenment

Hume advertises his second Enquiry (EPM) as an investigation into “personal merit.” And yet, there is almost no explicit scholarship to be found on Hume’s understanding of this concept. This chapter corrects this oversight. Using Hume’s critique on the virtue-talent distinction in EPM Appendix 4 as a foil, it argues for two conclusions. First, Hume’s critique is based on an account of personal merit that fundamentally excludes non-moral character evaluation. Second, this account more wholeheartedly embraces a sentimentalist metaethics than does Hume’s earlier argument in A Treatise of Human Nature. In particular, Hume’s highly celebrated claim in the Treatise that the foundation of all morality is “extensive sympathy,” as opposed to simply “sentiment,” turns out to be misleading from the view point of EPM.

- by Remy Debes
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- History of Ethics, Hume, Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume
- by Wulf D. Hund
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- Race and Racism, Critical Race Theory, Race and Ethnicity, Enlightenment

The significance of Hume’s positive attitude towards luxury might have been overemphasized by his commentators. In fact, arguments in favor of “moderate” luxury had already been entertained before the emergence of Hume’s position. Therefore to argue that Hume’s argument entailed the defense of moderate luxury is not to identify in it anything particularly unique. Thus, the first aim of this paper is to clarify the nature of Hume’s contribution to the ongoing luxury debates. This does not consist merely of an assertion of the compatibility of moral virtue with the enjoyment of luxury, but lies rather in Hume’s emphasis on two aspects of the beneficial interaction between morality and luxury. First, the historical process of the introduction of luxury is regarded by Hume as fostering new morals peculiar to the commercial age; and secondly, the enjoyment of luxury is seen as a condition favorable to the maintenance of morals. The second aim of this paper is to shed some new light on an aspect of Hume’s thought that, so far, has been relatively neglected, namely, his distinction between “innocent” and “vicious” forms of luxury, as well as his acknowledgement of the possibility of the emergence of the latter, as well as the former, in the modern commercial world. However, this does not necessarily lead us to a more pessimistic interpretation of Hume’s view of luxury than those accepted thus far; only to the awareness of how difficult and delicate, in Hume’s view, is the maintenance of the balance between the interlinked concepts of industry, knowledge, and humanity.

- by Ryu Susato
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- History of Economic Thought, Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Luxury

Hidden behind the dramatic Ochils to the north-east of Stirling, Menstrie Glen is now largely the preserve of sheep and the occasional hillwalker. The apparent tranquillity belies a rich history and a thriving population that occupied these hills and worked the land prior to the agricultural improvements of the 1700s. The architect of change, James Wright, lived in the heart of the glen and his documentary records illuminate the land use changes that transformed this glen. These historical documents are integrated with the results of archaeological survey work, providing a rich record of a landscape at a key point in the development of Scotland’s landscapes.

- by DAVE COWLEY and +1
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- Landscape Archaeology, Scottish Enlightenment, Late Medieval Scotland, Scotland

Em nota de rodapé acrescentada, a partir de 1753, ao ensaio "Of National Characters", Hume faz considerações inegavelmente racistas, segundo as quais povos nãobrancos seriam naturalmente inferiores aos brancos. A última edição dessa nota seria revisada de modo a tratar como inferiores somente os negros. Neste artigo, propõe-se uma avaliação do racismo de Hume que leve em conta o contexto em que essas afirmações se inserem, mostrando que não é possível tomar as posições do filósofo escocês como simples resultado de seu tempo. Em seguida, realizam-se algumas considerações sobre o impacto filosófico da "nota de rodapé infame" no pensamento do próprio Hume e, também, no que diz respeito a autores influenciados por ele.

- by Marcos Balieiro
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- Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Racismo
- by Mikko Tolonen
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- Intellectual History, Scottish History, Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume

Between 1760 and 1800, improving landowners inspired by the Scottish Enlightenment transformed the landscape of southern Scotland. An industrial revolution led to a further transformation north of the Southern Uplands Fault. To the south, Dumfries and Galloway remained a rural region with agriculture as its main industry. The perception of the region as ‘quintessentially rural’ has led to the neglect of the region’s significant role in the development of the industrial revolution in north-west England. In the late eighteenth century, a group of young men from Dumfries and Galloway moved south in search of employment. Some arrived in Liverpool where they became wealthy merchants, others became innovative and successful cotton manufacturers in Manchester. Through business partnerships and marriage links, some of the profits of the Manchester cotton factories were then re-invested in the Scottish iron industry.

This is a new edition of the two-volume "An Appeal to Common Sense in Behalf of Religion" (1766-1772) by Scottish philosopher James Oswald (1703-1793). This new edition, the first to appear since its original publication, contains an... more

Scholars have not reconciled Emerson’s anti-political individualism with his newly rediscovered abolitionism. I unite the apolitical and political Emerson by showing this separation is temporal. Solitude prefaces politics. I first explain Emerson’s solitary contemplation as imagination that reveals interpersonal obligations. Second, I show how these obligations draw the thinker back to politics, and in Emerson’s case, to abolitionism, where he advocated small conversations to encourage others to contemplation and then action. Conversation did not convert hostile slaveholders, but third, I note Emerson admired the abolitionists who attempted this moral suasion in the South at great personal risk. Their political activism exemplified self-reliance while in society.

A discussion of the Italian translation of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments edited by Eugenio Lecaldano. I point out Adam Smith's nuanced approach to the relationship between morality and religion and suggest that its complexity... more

- by Sergio Cremaschi
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- Ethics, Scottish Enlightenment, Adam Smith, David Hume

Diese Arbeit widmet sich dem sogenannten Adam-Smith-Problem, das der Autor als „Adam Smiths Problem” versteht und in einer postulierten Differenz von „Theory of Moral Sentiments” und „Wealth of Nations” nicht erschöpfend behandelt sieht. Die Arbeit formuliert deshalb Gedanken auf dem Weg zu einem integrierten Verständnis der Hauptwerke Smiths und stellt die Sympathie als Prinzip sittlicher Richtigkeit von Handlungen als Grundlage der Moralphilosophie Adam Smiths dar. Sie wendet multikontextuelles Denken auf das Adam-Smith-Problem an und entwickelt aus der Smithschen Anthropologie Ansätze für einen relationalen Rationalitätsbegriff. Die Arbeit plausibilisiert Kants Begriff des moralischen Geschmacks im Kontrast zum moralischen Gefühl bei Smith, dem moralischen Sinn bei Hume und dem Common Sense von Reid und Arendt und zeigt, dass Gemeinwohl und Eigennutz keineswegs als sich gegenüberstehende Entitäten in Smiths Werken zu finden sind. Die Arbeit spürt der Entstehungs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte, anthropologischen Grundpfeilern, sowie erkenntnistheoretischen und religiösen Grundlagen in Smiths Hauptwerken nach. Abschließend gewinnt sie aus den Überlegungen zur empiristischen und deistischen Prägung Smiths einige Schlussfolgerungen für aktuelle Debatten zu Modus und Orientierung der modernen Ökonomik.

- by Jonas Bedford-Strohm
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- Economic History, Anthropology, Political Economy, Epistemology

This is a new edition of "An Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth", by Scottish philosopher James Beattie (1735-1803). It is the most infamous attack on the philosophy of David Hume that appeared during Hume's life. This new edition is taken from the first edition of 1770, and collated with the 1771 second edition and the 1776 edition, which was most likely the final one that Beattie revised. This new edition contains an editor's introduction and annotations throughout.

- by James Fieser
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- Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Philosophical skepticism, James Beattie

This paper explores the economic critique of slave labor which emerged from the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment and the general failure of these ideas to influence American debates over slavery in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. While the Scottish school of political economy was quite influential in revolutionary America, neither antislavery advocates nor economic writers chose to follow the Scots in analyzing the deeper economic ramifications of the “peculiar” institution. Indeed, Americans who discussed slavery generally framed the issue in terms of morality, religion, legal principles, or humanitarian sensibilities. They rarely focused on slavery as a system of labor, or its effects on commercial growth. This tendency represented a peculiar feature of the late eighteenth-century debates over slavery in America. In other parts of the British Empire and Atlantic world, the discourse of political economy became one of the primary lenses through which contemporaries viewed the institution. And as historians of ante-bellum America have long noted, the supposed economic limitations of slavery were just as important as evangelical fervor or liberal principles in driving public anxiety over the future of the institution. This paper seeks to explore the historical roots of this “free labor” ideology in the Scottish discourse of political economy; how this critique of bondage was connected to a larger pattern of philosophical and commercial suppositions; and how this constellation of ideas took on different meanings when Americans grafted their own priorities onto the economic agenda of the Scots. Ultimately, the piece aims to reveal some of the tensions and dissonances which historically shaped the transmission of ideas throughout the transatlantic republic of letters, revealing how certain issues could disappear from the conversation when ideas moved from one distinct context to another.

- by Robert Pierce Forbes
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- Religion and Politics, Slavery, Thomas Jefferson, Scottish Enlightenment