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.

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.

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'.

The Scottish Enlightenment was one of the truly great intellectual and cultural movements of the world. Its achievements in science, philosophy, history, economics, and other disciplines also, were immense; and its influence has hardly if at all been dimmed in the intervening two centuries. This book, written for the general reader, considers the achievement of this most astonishing period of Scottish history. It attends not only to the ideas that made the Scottish Enlightenment such a wondrous moment, but also to the people themselves who generated these ideas – men such as David Hume and Adam Smith, who are still read for the sake of the light they shed on contemporary issues.

Originally published in 1976, this book discusses the relationship of the age of intellectual enlightenment in Scotland to the age of economic improvement and analyses the Scottish Enlightenment from a more sociological point of view. It describes the intense period of high intellectual endeavour and activity that took place in the resorts of the cultural social Scottish elite in 18th and early 19th Century Scotland. It discusses the crucial place of lawyers in 18th Century Scottish society and examines the intellectual features of the Scottish university system, charting the rise of the societies, clubs and other institutions such as the Encyclopaedia Britannica and The Edinburgh Review.

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.

Cover -- Title -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- A Note on Abbreviations and References -- Preface -- Kant and the Scottish Enlightenment: An Introduction -- 1 Hutcheson on the Unity of Virtue and Right -- 2 Hutcheson and Kant: Moral Sense and Moral Feeling -- 3 Hutcheson's and Kant's Critique of Sympathy -- 4 Kant and Hutcheson on Aesthetics and Teleology -- 5 Outer Sense, Inner Sense, and Feeling: Hutcheson and Kant on Aesthetic Pleasure -- 6 Taste, Morality, and Common Sense: Kant and the Scots -- 7 Kant and Hume on Feelings in Moral Philosophy -- 8 Hume's Principle and Kant's Pure Rational System of Religion: Grace, Providence, and the Highest Good -- 9 A Writer More Excellent than Cicero: Hume's Influence on Kant's Anthropology -- 10 Kant and Hume on Marriage -- 11 Hume and Kant on Imagination: Thematic and Methodological Differences -- 12 Hume and Kant on Space, Divisibility, and Antinomical Conflict -- 13 Hume and Kant on Identity and Substance -- 14 An Alternative to Heteronomy and Anarchy: Kant's Reformulation of the Social Contract -- 15 Kant, Smith, and the Place of Virtue in Political and Economic Organization -- 16 Adam Smith's Kantian Phenomenology of Moral Motivation -- 17 Kant and Smith on Imagination, Reason, and Personhood -- 18 Seeing a Flower in the Garden: Common Sense, Transcendental Idealism -- 19 Kant's Heuristic Methods: Feeling and Common Sense in Orientation and Taste -- List of Contributors -- Index