The Scottish Enlightenment: Essays In Reinterpretation

A collection of ten specially commissioned essays addressing five themes central to any study of the Scottish Enlightenment: (1) the place (both physical and cognitive) of science and medicine in the Scottish Enlightenment; (ii) the institutionalisation of enlightenment in the universities; (iii) the cultivation of the different branches of 'the science of man' in the Scottish Enlightenment; (iv) the national and international contexts of enlightenment thought in Scotland; and (v) the historiography of the Scottish Enlightenment. Taking up these themes, the editor and contributors explore facets of enlightened culture in Scotland which have not been given their due in the literature, and reassess current interpretations of various aspects of the Scottish Enlightenment specifically and its relation to the European Enlightenment in general. Special emphasis is given to such major Scottish thinkers as Francis Hutcheson, George Campbell, Thomas Reid, and David Hume.