Home > Scottish Enlightenment

In the period following the Act of Union 1707, Scotland's place in the world changed radically. Arguably the poorest country in western Europe in 1707, it began to reap the economic benefits of free trade with the British Empire in tandem with the intellectual benefits of Europe's first public education system since classical times. Under these twin stimuli, Scottish thinkers began questioning everything; 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.

The first major figure of the Scottish Enlightenment was Francis Hutcheson, 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, he founded one of the major branches of Scottish thinking, and opposed Hobbes' disciple David HumeDavid Hume ( April 26, 1711 August 25, 1776), Scottish philosopher and historian and, with Adam Smith and Thomas Reid among others, one of the most important figures in the Scottish Enlightenment. Hume is sometimes regarded as the third and most radical o. Hutcheson's major contribution to world thought was the utilitarianUtilitarianism is a suggested theoretical framework for morality, based on quantitative maximisation of some definition of " utility" for society or humanity. Utilitarianism "The greatest good for the most people. or: "The greatest good over the least pai and consequentialistConsequentialism is the belief that what ultimately matters in evaluating actions or policies of action are the consequences that result from choosing one action or policy rather than the alternative. Defining consequentialism Consequentialism is sometime principle that virtue is that which brought the greatest good to the most people.

Hume himself is arguably the most important thinker in the Scottish Enlightenment; his moral philosophy eventually triumphed over Hutcheson's, and his investigations into political economy inspired his friend Adam SmithThis article is about the 18th-century economist. For other people of the same name, see Adam Smith (disambiguation). Adam Smith Date of birth June 5, 1723 (baptism) Kirkcaldy Fife, Scotland Date of death July 17, 1790 (illness) Edinburgh, Scotland Occupa to more detailed work. Hume was largely responsible for giving the Scottish Enlightenment its practical hue, for he was concerned with the nature of knowledge, and developed ideas related to evidence, experience, and causation. Much of what is incorporated in the scientific methodThe scientific method is a sequence or collection of processes that are considered characteristic of scientific investigation and the acquisition of new scientific knowledge based upon physical evidence. Science deals with assertions about the way the wor, and many modern attitudes towards the relationship between science and religion, were developed by him.

If Hume was primarily concerned with philosophyPhilosophy literally means 'love of wisdom' from the Greek 'philo' and 'sofia'. It is now widely used to designate the pursuit of knowledge or wisdom about fundamental matters concerning life, death, meaning, reality, being and truth. The term may also re and worked less in economicsEconomics is the social science studying how society uses its limited resources to meet desires and wants. Put otherwise, economics studies what, how and for whom society produces. This involves analyzing the production, distribution and consumption of go, his ideas nevertheless led to important work in the latter field. Following Hume's impassioned defence of free tradeFree trade is an economic concept referring to the selling of products between countries without tariffs or other trade barriers. Free trade is the absence of artificial ( government-imposed) barriers to trade among individuals and firms in different nati, Adam Smith developed the concept and in 1776 published what is arguably the first work of modern economics -- The Wealth of Nations. This famous study had an immediate impact on British economic policy, and it still informs 21st century discussions on globalization and tariffs.

The Scottish Enlightenment shifted focus from intellectual and economic matters to those specifically scientific. The harbinger of this shift was James Anderson , a doctor with an abiding interest in agronomy. While the Scottish Enlightenment is traditionally considered to have ended with this change (which occurred at the tail 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 so, thanks to such figures as James Hutton, James Watt, James Clerk Maxwell, Lord Kelvin and Sir Walter Scott.