Edinburgh Studies in Scottish Philosophy

Explores the impact of Enlightenment philosophers in Scotland on the development of sociology

• The first collection exploring the significance of the Scottish Enlightenment for sociological thought
• The book connects historically crucial philosophical insights to present-day sociological discourse
• The book offers connections of Scottish Enlightenment thought to the American, British, French and German scenes of sociology

This book provides answers to two sorts of questions. It explores, on the one hand, how and what sociological ideas were developed in the Scottish Enlightenment. And, on the other hand, how the ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment would emerge and develop in subsequent traditions of sociology.

Scottish Enlightenment thinkers developed and refined a descriptive-explanatory approach and methodology to explore social and economic processes – an approach that was different from the normative and justificatory aspirations of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century social and political philosophies.

This distinct contribution of the Scottish Enlightenment is frequently overlooked, even if some of its central figures are acknowledged as important forerunners of contemporary social sciences.

This book offers a synoptic view on individual contributions and a connective view of theoretical achievements that are otherwise typically treated in isolation.

Brings Thomas Reid into conversation with contemporary moral philosophy

• Appeals to readers interested in Reid and Scottish Philosophy; and to those broadly interested in moral philosophy
• Draws from Reid’s entire corpus, not just his major published works, including his ‘Some Thoughts on the Utopian System’, correspondence, and ‘Lectures on Practical Ethics’
• Applies Reid’s arguments to contemporary discussions of moral subjectivism and moral pessimism
• Discusses the implications of Reid’s understanding of practical ethics and the limitations of speculative philosophy for moral education

Is morality a subjective matter, dependent on our desires and interests, or are there objective moral truths? And if the latter, can we explain the objectivity of morality without appeal to metaphysics, a robust teleology, or divine command?

This book argues that we find just such an account of moral objectivity in Thomas Reid’s defence of duty. To make this case, this book provides an explanation of Reid’s way of philosophy and his reasons for rejecting moral subjectivism; presents Reid’s account of the concept, perception, and motivational force of duty; and responds to contemporary challenges of moral subjectivism and moral pessimism from the perspective of his moral philosophy.

Further, this book argues that if Reid is correct, then there is an urgent need to reform current pedagogical practice and return to the teaching of practical ethics.

A critically introduced and edited collection of new letters and an essay by the philosopher Adam Ferguson

• Includes 36 new letters and one essay published for the first time and contextualised within Ferguson’s oeuvre
• Helps to fill in large gaps in Ferguson’s biography
• Presents new angles on major areas of study including the East India Company, the Regency Crisis, Scottish reactions to the French Revolution, and contemporary perceptions of Adam Smith’s Political Economy, among others
• Reveals the political influence that the Moderates of the Scottish Enlightenment, such as Ferguson, Hugh Blair (1718-1800), and Alexander Carlyle (1722-1805), attempted to exert on British foreign policy in the late 1790s

This volume will publish for the first time thirty-six, until now, unpublished letters, as well as a new essay on the French Revolution, by the moral philosopher, historian and man-of-letters Adam Ferguson (1723-1816). A major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, Ferguson has been one of the principal beneficiaries of the refocus of scholarly attention beyond the towering figures of David Hume (1711-1776) and Adam Smith (1723-1790) and toward their larger intellectual network. Penned during the last decades of his life, they were all addressed to his close friend Sir John Macpherson. They concern major topics of the day such as Enlightenment, Empire, and the French Revolution, as well as various illuminating details about Ferguson’s final decades. They add considerably to our knowledge of the late Scottish Enlightenment.

Located in a recent acquisition at the British Library, these previously unnoticed letters add considerably to our knowledge of Ferguson, his ideas - philosophical, historical, and political - and his intellectual milieu from 1784 to 1815. A substantial introductory essay presents the main findings, while critical apparatus will assist specialists and students alike in understanding this key Enlightenment thinker.

Highlights the continued flourishing of Scottish philosophy after the Scottish Enlightenment by exploring the work of underappreciated figures and themes

• Engages with philosophical issues including the science of human nature, realism versus idealism, the relation of metaphysics and psychology, the impact of evolutionary biology on religious thinking, and the recurrent debate between theism and agnosticism
• Draws attention to an important set of typically overlooked Scottish philosophers working after the golden age of Hume, Smith and Reid
• Integrates cultural history and philosophical inquiry

Beginning with Sir William Hamilton’s revitalisation of philosophy in Scotland in the 1830s, Gordon Graham takes up the theme of George Davie’s The Democratic Intellect and explores a century of debates surrounding the identity and continuity of the Scottish philosophical tradition.

Gordon Graham identifies a host of once-prominent but now neglected thinkers – such as Alexander Bain, J. F. Ferrier, Thomas Carlyle, Alexander Campbell Fraser, John Tulloch, Henry Jones, Henry Calderwood, David Ritchie and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison – whose reactions to Hume and Reid stimulated new currents of ideas.

Graham concludes by considering the relation between the Scottish philosophical tradition and the 20th-century philosopher John Macmurray.

Argues that David Hume was a thoroughgoing sceptic on epistemological, metaphysical and doxastic grounds

• Advances both historical and logical reasons for the conclusion that Hume is a radical sceptic
• Exhibits extraordinary historical depth and breadth, with a sweep covering the history of Western philosophy
• Covers Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature; An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding and An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals; Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary; The History of England; Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion; and letters

Making a sharp break with dominant contemporary readings of David Hume’s scepticism, Peter S. Fosl offers an original and radical interpretation of Hume as a thoroughgoing sceptic. He does this by first situating Hume’s thought historically in the sceptical tradition and goes on to interpret the conceptual apparatus of Hume's work.

A carefully curated selection of new and classic essays by Scottish Enlightenment expert Christopher J. Berry

This collection of essays by Christopher J. Berry spans several decades and multiple shifts across Scottish Enlightenment, Hume and Smith studies. It brings together classic essays – some of which are difficult to find – with 3 new pieces, which cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation. Clustered around the themes of sociability, the Humean science of man and the Smithian engagement with commerce and morality, these collected works will be of considerable value to those working in political philosophy, the history of ideas and the history of economic and social theory.

Also included is a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry’s personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Key Features

• Christopher J. Berry is a leading expert in Scottish Enlightenment scholarship
• Clustered around the themes of sociability, the Humean science of man and the Smithian engagement with commerce and morality
• Will be of considerable value to those working in political philosophy, the history of ideas and the history of economic and social theory
• Includes a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry’s personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment

Looks at all aspects of the pivotal intellectual relationship between two key figures of the Enlightenment

This collection brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau scholars to explore the key shared concerns of these two great thinkers in politics, philosophy, economics, history and literature.

Rousseau (1712–78) and Smith (1723–90) are two of the foremost thinkers of the European Enlightenment. They both made seminal contributions to moral and political philosophy and shaped some of the key concepts of modern political economy. Among Smith’s first published works was a letter to the Edinburgh Review where he discusses Rousseau’s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality. Smith continued to engage with Rousseau’s work and to explore many shared themes such as sympathy, political economy, sentiment and inequality. Though we have no solid evidence that they met in person, we do know that they shared many friends and interlocutors. In particular, David Hume was Smith’s closest intellectual associate and was also the one who arranged for Rousseau’s stay in England in 1766.

Contributors

Tabitha Baker, University of Warwick, UK.

Christel Fricke, University of Oslo, Norway.

Charles L. Griswold, Boston University, USA.

Ryan Patrick Hanley, Marquette University, USA.

Mark Hill, London School of Economics, UK.

Mark Hulliung, Brandeis University, USA.

Jimena Hurtado, Universidad de los Andes, Columbia.

John McHugh, Denison University, USA.

Jason Neidleman, University of La Verne, USA.

Maria Pia Paganelli, Trinity University, USA.

Dennis C. Rasmussen, Tufts University, USA.

Neil Saccamano, Cornell University, USA.

Michael Schleeter, Pacific Lutheran University, USA.

Adam Schoene, Cornell University, USA.

Craig Smith, University of Glasgow, UK.

A systematic treatment of Hume’s conception of imagination in all the main topics of his philosophy

The prominence of the imagination in David Hume’s philosophy has been recognised by generations of readers. In this rich study, Timothy Costelloe gives us the most complete picture yet of Hume’s view of imagination – and its place in his philosophy.

Costelloe convincingly shows that Hume’s concept of imagination is coherent, formulating the features that compose its distinctive character. Discover how this understanding of imagination informs Hume’s approach to the various subjects he treats in his work: metaphysics, morals and politics, aesthetics, history, religion and the practice of philosophy itself.

Key Features

• The first systematic, book-length study on the nature and role of the imagination in Hume’s philosophy
• Gives a completely new perspective on Hume’s thought, which opens up a great deal of further debate and discussion
• Draws from the whole of Hume’s corpus
• Treats all the major areas Hume considers in his philosophy including metaphysics, morals and politics, aesthetics, history, religion and philosophy

Examines Adam Ferguson's philosophy, political theory and social thought in the context of the Scottish Enlightenment

• The first monograph explicitly devoted to the idea of civil society in the work of Adam Ferguson – its earliest British exponent
• Places civil society at the heart of a study of Ferguson’s methodology of social science
• Contributes to the history and understanding of a key concept in contemporary social and political thinking
• Challenges the existing interpretations of Ferguson as a sceptic about commercial modernity who was more of an old-fashioned stoic or republican moralist than a fully signed up member of the Scottish Enlightenment

Adam Ferguson, a friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, was among the leading Scottish Enlightenment figures who worked to develop a science of man. He created a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising. He was among the first in the English-speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society and political science.

Craig Smith explores Ferguson's thought, and examines his attempt to develop a genuine moral science and its place in providing a secure basis for the virtuous education of the new elite of Hanoverian Britain. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a republican sceptical about commercial society and much closer to the mainstream of the Scottish Enlightenment and its defence of the new British commercial order.

Defends Reid's Common Sense philosophy against the claim that perception does not allow us to experience the physical world

With a new reading of Thomas Reid on primary and secondary qualities, Christopher A. Shrock illuminates the Common Sense theory of perception. Shrock follow's Reid's lead in defending common sense philosophy against the problem of secondary qualities, which claims that our perceptions are only experiences in our brains, and don't let us know about the world around us. At the same time, Schrock maintains a healthy optimism about science and reason.

Common sense philosophy states that we connect with the physical world around us through our perception of it. Philosophers call this view of perception 'direct realism'. The opposite view to this is 'the problem of secondary qualities', which relegates our perceptions – from colours, smells, sounds and tastes to how long something looks or how heavy something feels – to the mental realm, because science has no objective place for them. The logical conclusion of this argument is that we can never perceive physical objects or their properties through our senses.

Key Features

• Gives a new and convincing interpretation of Reid on primary and secondary qualities
• Formalises the problem of secondary qualities, the most important objection facing direct realism today
• Engages with a historically wide range of thinkers, from early moderns to the present
• Proposes an innovative philosophy of colour, where colours are objective, visible properties of mind-external entities
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A systematic reinterpretation of Hume's social and political thought as an Enlightenment thinker

The Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711–1776) has often been regarded as a key Enlightenment thinker. However, his image has been long contested between those who consider him a conservative and those who see him as a key liberal thinker. Hume's Sceptical Enlightenment offers a new interpretation for such diverse images and demonstrates the uniqueness of Hume as an Enlightenment thinker, illustrating how his 'spirit of scepticism' often leads him into seemingly paradoxical positions. This book will be of interest to Hume scholars, intellectual historians of 17th- to 19th-century Europe and those interested in the Enlightenment more widely.