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History See other History Articles Title: Scottish Enlightenment The Scottish Enlightenment was the period in 18th century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By 1750, Scots were among the most literate citizens of Europe, with an estimated 75% level of literacy.[1] Sharing the humanist and rationalist outlook of the European Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the fundamental importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority which could not be justified by reason. They held to an optimistic belief in the ability of man to effect changes for the better in society and nature, guided only by reason. It was this latter feature which gave the Scottish Enlightenment its special flavour, distinguishing it from its continental European counterpart. In Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroughgoing empiricism and practicality where the chief virtues were held to be improvement, virtue, and practical benefit for both the individual and society as a whole. Among the advances of the period were achievements in philosophy, political economy, engineering, architecture, medicine, geology, archaeology, law, agriculture, chemistry, and sociology. Among the outstanding Scottish thinkers and scientists of the period were Francis Hutcheson, Alexander Campbell, David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Robert Burns, Adam Ferguson, John Playfair, Joseph Black and James Hutton. The Scottish Enlightenment had effects far beyond Scotland itself, not only because of the esteem in which Scottish achievements were held in Europe and elsewhere, but also because its ideas and attitudes were carried across the Atlantic as part of the Scottish diaspora which had its beginnings in that same era. As a result, a significant proportion of technological and social development in the United States, Canada and New Zealand in the 18th and 19th centuries were accomplished through Scots-Americans and Scots-Canadians. After the Act of Union 1707 In the period following the Act of Union 1707[citation needed], Scotland's place in the world was 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[2] 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"[3][4] Empiricism and inductive reasoning The first major philosopher of the Scottish Enlightenment was Francis Hutcheson,[5] 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"[5]. 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 globalisation and tariffs.[6] Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed what Hume called a 'science of man'[7] 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.[5][8] While the Scottish Enlightenment is traditionally considered to have concluded toward the end of the 18th century[7], 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. An English visitor to Edinburgh during the heyday of the Scottish Enlightenment remarked: "Here I stand at what is called the Cross of Edinburgh, and can, in a few minutes, take 50 men of genius and learning by the hand". It is a striking summation of the outburst of pioneering intellectual activity that occurred in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century. They were a closely knit group: most knew one another; many were close friends; some were related by marriage. All were politically conservative but intellectually radical (Unionists and progressives to a man), courteous, friendly and accessible. They were stimulated by enormous curiosity, optimism about human progress and a dissatisfaction with age-old theological disputes. Together they created a cultural golden age. – Magnus Magnusson, New Statesman[7] Key figures 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[9] (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 Robert Fergusson (1750-1774), poet. Andrew Fletcher (1653-1716) a forerunner of the Scottish Enlightenment,[10] writer, patriot, commissioner of Parliament of Scotland 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[8][9] (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 Thomas Muir of Huntershill, (1765–1799), political reformer, leader of the Scottish "Friends of the People Society" John Playfair (1748-1819) mathematician, author of Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth Allan Ramsay[11] (1686 - 1758) poet Henry Raeburn[7] (1756-1823) 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 George Turnbull (1698-1748), theologian, philosopher and writer on education John Walker (naturalist) (1730-1803) professor of natural history James Watt (1736-1819) student of Joseph Black; engineer, inventor (see Watt steam engine) Plus two who visited and corresponded with Edinburgh scholars[8]: 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 The learned Scots were remarkably unlike the French philosophes; indeed, they were unlike any other group of philosophers that ever existed. In a gigantic study, “The Sociology of Philosophies,” published in 1998, Randall Collins assembled structural portraits of the seminal moments in philosophy, both Western and Eastern. Typically, the most important figures in a given cluster of thinkers (perhaps three or four men) would jockey for centrality while cultivating alliances with other thinkers or students on the margins. In the Scottish group, however, there was little of the bristling, charged, and exclusionary fervour of the Diderot-d’Alembert circle; or of the ruthless atmosphere found in Germany in the group that included Fichte, the Schelling brothers, and Hegel; or of the conscious glamour of the existentialists in postwar Paris. The Scots vigorously disagreed with one another, but they lacked the temperament for the high moral drama of quarrels, renunciations, and reconciliation. Hutcheson, Hume and Smith, along with Adam Ferguson and Thomas Reid, were all widely known, but none of them were remotely cult figures in the style of Hegel, Marx, Emerson, Wittgenstein, Sartre, or Foucault. To an astonishing degree, the men supported one another’s projects and publications, which they may have debated at a club that included amateurs (say, poetry-writing doctors, or lawyers with an interest in science) or in the fumy back room of some dark Edinburgh tavern. In all, the group seems rather like an erudite version of Dickens’s chattering and benevolent Pickwick Club.
Poster Comment: What amazes me is that all of this came out of Edinburgh. which I think at that time had about 30,000 people.
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#1. To: Turtle (#0)
(Edited)
Indeed. And the great literature of the 19th century came out of the pubs of Ireland. The Gaels have a strong foothold in our traditional reason and artistic based culture, though few recognize it today since we've abandoned reason for the most part in favor of superstitious man-god worshipping tribalism such as is found in the East and in Africa. What's interesting is the cultural flotsam that still surfaces - Scots are almost always the engineers and warriors in movies, and Irish are always the muscians and poets, yet nobody knows why. Such a pity. To be alive in 18th century Scotland during this time of ferment, wow, what a dream.
"The more artificial taboos and restrictions there are in the world, the more the people are impoverished.... The more that laws and regulations are given prominence, the more thieves and robbers there will be." - Lao Tzu, 6th century BC
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