The Cambridge Companion to the Scottish Enlightenment

by Alexander Broadie (Editor), Craig Smith (Editor)

Overview

The second edition of this Companion presents a philosophical perspective on an eighteenth-century phenomenon that has had a profound influence on Western culture. A distinguished team of contributors examines the writings of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, Adam Ferguson and other Scottish thinkers. Their subjects range across philosophy, natural theology, economics, anthropology, natural science, and law and the arts, and in addition, they relate the Scottish Enlightenment to its historical context and assess its impact and legacy. The result is a comprehensive and accessible volume that illuminates the richness, the intellectual variety and the underlying unity of this important movement. This volume contains five entirely new chapters on morality, the human mind, aesthetics, sentimentalism and political economy, and eleven other chapters have been significantly revised and updated. The book will be of interest to a wide range of readers in philosophy, theology, literature and the history of ideas.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108430784
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	09/26/2019
Series:	Cambridge Companions to Philosophy
Edition description:	2nd Revised ed.
Pages:	394
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Alexander Broadie is Honorary Professorial Research Fellow at the University of Glasgow. His books include The Circle of John Mair: Logic and Logicians in Pre-Reformation Scotland (1985), The Shadow of Scotus: Philosophy and Faith in Pre-Reformation Scotland (1995), A History of Scottish Philosophy (2008), The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation (2001) and (as editor) Studies in Seventeenth-Century Scottish Philosophers and Their Philosophy (2017).

Craig Smith is the Adam Smith Senior Lecturer in the Scottish Enlightenment in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. He is the author of Adam Smith's Political Philosophy: The Invisible Hand and Spontaneous Order (2006) and Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society: Moral Science in the Scottish Enlightenment (2018), and he is a co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith (2013).

Table of Contents

Introduction Alexander Broadie; 1. Several contexts of the Scottish Enlightenment Roger L. Emerson and Mark G. Spencer; 2. Religion and rational theology M. A. Stewart; 3. The human mind and its powers Jacqueline Taylor; 4. Anthropology: the 'original' of human nature Aaron Garrett; 5. Science in the Scottish Enlightenment Paul Wood; 6. Scepticism and common sense Heiner F. Klemme; 7. Moral sense theories and other sentimentalist accounts of the foundations of morals Christel Fricke; 8. The political theory of the Scottish Enlightenment Fania Oz-Salzberger; 9. Political economy Craig Smith; 10. Natural jurisprudence and the theory of justice Knud Haakonssen; 11. Legal theory John W. Cairns; 12. Sociality and socialisation Christopher J. Berry; 13. Historiography Murray G. H. Pittock; 14. Art and aesthetic theory Catherine Labio; 15. Literature and sentimentalism Deidre Dawson; 16. The impact on America: Scottish philosophy and the American founding Samuel Fleischacker; 17. The nineteenth-century aftermath Gordon Graham; Select bibliography, Index.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"The study of the Scottish Enlightenment has expanded dramatically in recent years, not least through the work of many of the contributors to this collection of essays. By bringing together review essays on a wide range of topics, Alexander Broadie's work serves as an excellent introduction to current thought on the topic." Philosophy in Review

" . . . a uniformly strong introduction to the world of Reid and Campbell and beyond them to the circumstances and ideas of those crucial figures of the Scottish Enlightenment-Adam Ferguson, Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Adam Smith. The volume is an example of the ways in which ideas and arguments and ideology and rhetoric can be introduced and explored clearly and without compromise." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"This volume maintains the high standard of excellence set by previous offerings in the Cambridge Companion series, making it a valuable reference for anyone interested in western philosophy and intellectual history." Theology Today

Editorial Reviews

"The study of the Scottish Enlightenment has expanded dramatically in recent years, not least through the work of many of the contributors to this collection of essays. By bringing together review essays on a wide range of topics, Alexander Broadie's work serves as an excellent introduction to current thought on the topic." Philosophy in Review

" . . . a uniformly strong introduction to the world of Reid and Campbell and beyond them to the circumstances and ideas of those crucial figures of the Scottish Enlightenment-Adam Ferguson, Hume, Francis Hutcheson, and Adam Smith. The volume is an example of the ways in which ideas and arguments and ideology and rhetoric can be introduced and explored clearly and without compromise." Studies in English Literature 1500-1900

"This volume maintains the high standard of excellence set by previous offerings in the Cambridge Companion series, making it a valuable reference for anyone interested in western philosophy and intellectual history." Theology Today

From the Publisher