SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT

The 'Scottish Enlightenment' was a period of intellectual ferment in Scotland, running from approximately 1730 to 1800.

Contents

After the Act of Union 1707

Empiricism and inductive reasoning

Key figures in the Scottish Enlightenment

References

Further reading

External links

After the Act of Union 1707

In the period following the Act of Union 1707 Scotland's place in the world altered radically. Following the Reformation, many Scottish academics were teaching in great cities of mainland Europe but with the birth and rapid expansion of the new British Empire came a revival of philosophical thought in Scotland and a prodigious diversity of thinkers.
Arguably the poorest^[1] country in Western Europe in 1707, Scotland was then able to turn its attentions to the wider world without the opposition of England. Scotland reaped the economic benefits of free trade within the British Empire together with the intellectual benefits of having established Europe's first public education system since classical times. Under these twin stimuli, Scottish thinkers began questioning assumptions previously taken for granted; and with Scotland's traditional connections to France, then in the throes of the Enlightenment, the Scots began developing a uniquely practical branch of humanism to the extent that Voltaire said "We look to Scotland for all our ideas of civilisation."^[2][3]

Empiricism and inductive reasoning

The first major philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment was Francis Hutcheson,^[4] who held the Chair of Philosophy at the University of Glasgow from 1729 to 1746. A moral philosopher with alternatives to the ideas of Thomas Hobbes, one of his major contributions to world thought was the utilitarian and consequentialist principle that virtue is that which provides, in his words, “the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.”
Much of what is incorporated in the scientific method (the nature of knowledge, evidence, experience, and causation) and some modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion were developed by David Hume. "Like many of the learned Scots, he revered the new science of Copernicus, Bacon, Galileo, Kepler, Boyle, and Newton; he believed in the experimental method and loathed superstition."
Adam Smith developed and published ''The Wealth of Nations,'' the first work in modern economics. This famous study, which had an immediate impact on British economic policy, still frames 21st century discussions on globalization and tariffs.^[5]
Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed what Hume called a "science of man"^[6] which was expressed historically in works by such as James Burnett, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, and William Robertson, all of whom merged a scientific study of how humans behave in ancient and primitive cultures with a strong awareness of the determining forces of modernity. Gathering places in Edinburgh such as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, were among the crucibles from which many of the ideas which distinguish the Scottish Enlightenment emerged.
The focus of the Scottish Enlightenment ranged from intellectual and economic matters to the specifically scientific as in the work of William Cullen, physician and chemist, James Anderson, a lawyer and agronomist, Joseph Black, physicist and chemist, and James Hutton, the first modern geologist.^[7]
While the Scottish Enlightenment is traditionally considered to have concluded toward the end of the 18th century, it is worth noting that disproportionately large Scottish contributions to British science and letters continued for another fifty years or more, thanks to such figures as James Hutton, James Watt, William Murdoch, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Sir Walter Scott.

Key figures in the Scottish Enlightenment

★ Robert Adam (1728-1792) architect

★ James Anderson (1739-1808) agronomist, lawyer, amateur scientist

★ Joseph Black (1728-1799) physicist and chemist, first to isolate carbon dioxide

★ Hugh Blair (1718-1800) minister, author

★ James Boswell (1740-1795) lawyer, author of ''Life of Johnson''

★ Thomas Brown (1778–1820), Scottish moral philosopher and philosopher of mind; jointly held the Chair of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University with Dugald Stewart

★ James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (1714-1799) philosopher, judge, founder of modern comparative historical linguistics

★ Robert Burns^[8] (1759-1796) poet

★ Alexander Campbell (1788-1866) founder of the Restoration Movement

★ George Campbell (1719-1796) philosopher of language, theology, and rhetoric

★ Sir John Clerk of Eldin (1728-1812) prolific artist, author of ''An Essay on Naval Tactics''; great-uncle of James Clerk Maxwell

★ William Cullen (1710-1790) physician, chemist, early medical researcher

★ Adam Ferguson (1723-1816) considered the founder of sociology

★ James Hall, 4th Baronet (1761-1832) geologist, geophysicist

★ Henry Home, Lord Kames (1696-1782) philosopher, judge, historian

★ David Hume (1711-1776) philosopher, historian, essayist

★ Francis Hutcheson (1694-1746) philosopher of metaphysics, logic, and ethics

★ James Hutton (1726–1797) founder of modern geology

★ Sir John Leslie (1766-1832) mathematician, physicist, investigator of heat (thermodynamics)

★ James Mill (1773-1836) late in the period - Father of John Stuart Mill.

★ John Millar (1735-1801) philosopher, historian, historiographer

★ John Playfair (1748-1819) mathematician, author of ''Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth''

★ Allan Ramsay^[9] (1686 - 1758) poet

★ Henry Raeburn (1726-1823) portrait painter

★ Thomas Reid (1710-1796) philosopher, founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense

★ William Robertson (1721-1793) one of the founders of modern historical research

★ Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832) lawyer, novelist, poet

★ John Sinclair (1754 - 1835) politician, writer, the first person to use the word statistics in the English language

★ William Smellie (1740-1795) editor of the first edition of Encyclopædia Britannica

★ Adam Smith (1723-1790) whose ''The Wealth of Nations'' was the first modern treatise on economics

★ Dugald Stewart (1753-1828) moral philosopher

★ John Walker (naturalist) (1730-1803) Natural History Professor

★ James Watt (1736-1819) student of James Black; engineer, inventor (see Watt steam engine)
Plus two who visited and corresponded with Edinburgh scholars:

★ Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802) physician, botanist, philosopher, grandfather of Charles Darwin

★ Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) polymath, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States

References

1. How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World & Everything in It, , Arthur, Herman, Crown Publishing Group, 2001,
2. The Scottish enlightenment and the challenges for Europe in the 21st century; climate change and energy José Manuel Barroso, 11th President of the European Commission
3. Visiting The Royal Society of Edinburgh…
4. Northern Lights: How modern life emerged from eighteenth-century Edinburgh David Denby
5. Adam Smith's Legacy: His Place in the Development of Modern Economics, , Michael, Fry, Routledge, 1992,
6. Northern lights Magnus Magnusson
7. The Man Who Found Time: James Hutton and the Discovery of the Earth's Antiquity, , Jack, Repcheck, Basic Books, The Perseus Books Group, 2003,
8. A Toast To Times Past Phillip Manning
9. A Hotbed of Genius: Culture and Society in the Scottish Enlightenment Dr David Allan

Further reading

★ ''A Hotbed of Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment 1731-1790.'' David Daiches, Peter Jones, Jean Jones (eds).
: · Edinburgh University Press, 1986. Hardcover: ISBN 0 85224 537 8.
: · Saltire Society 1996. Paperback: ISBN 0-85411-069-0.
: · Harper Perennial 2004. Paperback: ISBN 006055889X, ISBN 978-0060558895.

★ ''The Scottish Nation: A History 1700-2000.'' Thomas Devine.
: · Viking, 1999. Hardcover: ISBN 0670888117, ISBN 978-0670888115.
: · Penguin, 2001. Paperback: ISBN 0141002344, ISBN 978-0141002347.

★ ''The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation.'' Alexander Broadie.
: · Birlinn 2002. Paperback: ISBN 1-84158-151-8, ISBN 978-1841581514.

★ ''America's Founding Secret: What the Scottish Enlightenment Taught Our Founding Fathers.'' Robert W. Galvin.
: · Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. Hardcover: ISBN 0-7425-2280-6, ISBN 978-0742522800.

★ ''The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment.'' (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy) Alexander Broadie, ed.
: · Cambridge University Press, 2003. Hardcover: ISBN 0521802733, ISBN-13: 9780521802734. Paperback: ISBN 0521003237, ISBN 978-0521003230.

★ ''The Mark of the Scots: Their Astonishing Contributions to History, Science, Democracy, Literature, and the Arts.'' Duncan A. Bruce.
: · (Publisher?) 1996. Hardcover: ISBN 1559723564, ISBN 978-1559723565.
: · Citadel, Kensington Books, 2000. Paperback: ISBN 0-8065-2060-4, ISBN 978-0806520605.

★ ''How the Scots Made America.'' Michael Fry.
: · Thomas Dunne Books, St. Martin's Press, 2004. Hardcover: ISBN 0-312-33876-7, ISBN 978-0312338763.

★ ''Scotland: A New History.'' Michael Lynch.
: · Pimlico, Random House, 1992 (new edition). Paperback: ISBN 0-7126-9893-0, ISBN 978-0712698931.

External links

★ Northern Lights: How modern life emerged from eighteenth-century Edinburgh.

★ Scottish Enlightenment - an introduction.