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Scottish Enlightenment
The Scottish Enlightenment (, ) was the period in 18th- and early-19th-century Scotland characterised by an outpouring of intellectual and scientific accomplishments. By the eighteenth century, Scotland had a network of parish schools in the Scottish Lowlands and five universities. The Enlightenment culture was based on close readings of new books, and intense discussions which took place daily at such intellectual gathering places in Edinburgh as The Select Society and, later, The Poker Club, as well as within Scotland's ancient universities (St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, King's College, and Marischal College). Sharing the humanist and rational outlook of the Western Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason. In Scotland, the Enlightenment was characterised by a thoroughgoing empiricism and practicality where t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hume And Adam Smith Statues, Edinburgh
David (; , "beloved one") was a king of ancient Israel and Judah and the third king of the United Monarchy, according to the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. The Tel Dan stele, an Aramaic-inscribed stone erected by a king of Aram-Damascus in the late 9th/early 8th centuries BCE to commemorate a victory over two enemy kings, contains the phrase (), which is translated as " House of David" by most scholars. The Mesha Stele, erected by King Mesha of Moab in the 9th century BCE, may also refer to the "House of David", although this is disputed. According to Jewish works such as the ''Seder Olam Rabbah'', '' Seder Olam Zutta'', and ''Sefer ha-Qabbalah'' (all written over a thousand years later), David ascended the throne as the king of Judah in 885 BCE. Apart from this, all that is known of David comes from biblical literature, the historicity of which has been extensively challenged,Writing and Rewriting the Story of Solomon in Ancient Israel; by Isaac Kalimi; page 32; Cam ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck (; 29 October 1740 ( N.S.) – 19 May 1795), was a Scottish biographer, diarist, and lawyer, born in Edinburgh. He is best known for his biography of the English writer Samuel Johnson, '' Life of Samuel Johnson,'' which is commonly said to be the greatest biography written in the English language. A great mass of Boswell's diaries, letters, and private papers were recovered from the 1920s to the 1950s, and their publication by Yale University has transformed his reputation. Early life Boswell was born in Blair's Land on the east side of Parliament Close behind St Giles' Cathedral in Edinburgh on 29 October 1740 ( N.S.). He was the eldest son of a judge, Alexander Boswell, Lord Auchinleck, and his wife Euphemia Erskine. As the eldest son, he was heir to his family's estate of Auchinleck in Ayrshire. Boswell's mother was a strict Calvinist, and he felt that his father was cold to him. As a child, he was delicate. Kay Jamison, Profes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scottish Diaspora
The Scottish diaspora consists of Scottish people who emigrated from Scotland and their descendants. The diaspora is concentrated in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia, England, New Zealand, Ireland and to a lesser extent Argentina, Chile, and Brazil. The Scottish diaspora has been estimated by the Scottish Government to be between 28 and 40 million people worldwide. Other estimates have ranged as high as 80 million. According to Marjory Harper (2003) of the University of Aberdeen, Scottish emigrants and their descendants have maintained connections to Scotland though formal and informal means including "church, school and Scottish society" and "place names, correspondence, family and community networks, and chain migration". Rogers Brubaker (2005) wrote that immigrants from Scotland have regarded the ancestral homeland as "an authoritative source of value, identity and loyalty". According to Lauren Brancaz (2016) of the Centre for Breton and Celtic Resea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western World
The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and state (polity), states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. The Western world likewise is called the Occident () in contrast to the Eastern world known as the Orient (). Definitions of the "Western world" vary according to context and perspectives; the West is an evolving concept made up of cultural, political, and economic synergy among diverse groups of people, and not a rigid region with fixed borders and members. Some historians contend that a linear development of the West can be traced from Greco-Roman world, Ancient Greece and Rome, while others argue that such a projection constructs a false genealogy. A geographical concept of the West started to take shape in the 4th century CE when Constantine the Great, Constantine, the first Christian Roman emperor, divided the Roman Em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dugald Stewart
Dugald Stewart (; 22 November 175311 June 1828) was a Scottish philosopher and mathematician. Today regarded as one of the most important figures of the later Scottish Enlightenment, he was renowned as a populariser of the work of Francis Hutcheson and of Adam Smith. Trained in mathematics, medicine and philosophy, his lectures at the University of Edinburgh were widely disseminated by his many influential students. In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In most contemporary documents he is referred to as Prof Dougal Stewart. Early life He was the son of Matthew Stewart (1715–1785), professor of mathematics at the University of Edinburgh (1747–1772), and was born in his father's quarters at Old College. His mother was Marjory Stewart, his father's cousin. He was educated at the High School and the University of Edinburgh, where he studied mathematics and moral philosophy under Adam Ferguson. In 1771, in the hope of gaining a Snell Exhibition S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adam Smith
Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the field of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics"——— or the "father of capitalism".———— He is known for two classic works: ''The Theory of Moral Sentiments'' (1759) and ''The Wealth of Nations, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'' (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as ''The Wealth of Nations'', is regarded as his ''magnum opus'', marking the inception of modern economic scholarship as a comprehensive system and an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of divine will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors, as well as the interactions among them. The work is notable for its contribution to economic theory, particularly in its exposition o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Reid
Thomas Reid (; 7 May (Julian calendar, O.S. 26 April) 1710 – 7 October 1796) was a religiously trained Scotland, Scottish philosophy, philosopher best known for his philosophical method, his #Thomas_Reid's_theory_of_common_sense, theory of perception, and its wide implications on epistemology, and as the developer and defender of an Agent causality, agent-causal theory of free will. He also focused extensively on ethics, Action theory (philosophy), theory of action, philosophy of language, language and philosophy of mind. He was the founder of the Scottish School of Common Sense and played an integral role in the Scottish Enlightenment. In 1783 he was a joint founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A contemporary of David Hume, Reid was also "Hume's earliest and fiercest critic". Life Reid was born in the manse at Strachan, Aberdeenshire, on 26 April 1710, the son of Lewis Reid (1676–1762) and his wife Margaret Gregory, first cousin to James Gregory (mathematician), J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Playfair
John Playfair FRSE, FRS (10 March 1748 – 20 July 1819) was a Church of Scotland minister, remembered as a scientist and mathematician, and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh. He is best known for his book ''Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth'' (1802), which summarised the work of James Hutton. It was through this book that Hutton's principle of uniformitarianism, later taken up by Charles Lyell, first reached a wide audience. Playfair's textbook ''Elements of Geometry'' made a brief expression of Euclid's parallel postulate known now as Playfair's axiom. In 1783 he was a co-founder of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He served as General Secretary to the society 1798–1819. Life Born at Benvie, slightly west of Dundee to Margaret Young (1719/20 – 1805) and Reverend James Playfair (died 1772), the kirk minister of Liff and Benvie. Playfair was educated at home until the age of 14, when he entered the University of St Andrews ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lord Monboddo
James Burnett, Lord Monboddo (baptised 25 October 1714 – 26 May 1799) was a Scottish judge, scholar of linguistic evolution, philosopher and deist. He is most famous today as a founder of modern comparative historical linguistics. In 1767, he became a judge in the Court of Session. As such, Burnett adopted an honorary title based on the name of his father's estate and family seat, Monboddo House. Monboddo was one of a number of scholars involved at the time in development of early concepts of biological evolution. Some credit him with anticipating in principle the idea of natural selection that was read by (and acknowledged in the writings of) Erasmus Darwin. Charles Darwin read the works of his grandfather Erasmus and later developed the ideas into a scientific theory. Early years James Burnett was born in 1714 at Monboddo House in Kincardineshire, Scotland. After his primary education at the parish school of Laurencekirk, he studied at Marischal College, Aberdeen, from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
James Hutton
James Hutton (; 3 June Old Style and New Style dates, O.S. 1726 – 26 March 1797) was a Scottish geologist, Agricultural science, agriculturalist, chemist, chemical manufacturer, Natural history, naturalist and physician. Often referred to as the "Father of Modern Geology," he played a key role in establishing geology as a modern science. Hutton advanced the idea that the physical world's history of Earth, remote history can be inferred from evidence in present-day rocks. Through his study of features in the landscape and coastlines of his native Scottish lowlands, such as Salisbury Crags or Siccar Point, he developed the theory that geological features could not be static but underwent continuing transformation over indefinitely long periods of time. From this he argued, in agreement with many other early geologists, that the Earth could not be young. He was one of the earliest proponents of what in the 1830s became known as uniformitarianism, the science which explains feat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Francis Hutcheson (philosopher)
Francis Hutcheson (; 8 August 1694 – 8 August 1746) was an Irish philosopher known as one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Born in Ulster to a family of Scottish Presbyterians, he was Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University and is remembered as author of ''A System of Moral Philosophy''. Hutcheson was an important influence on the works of several significant Enlightenment thinkers, including David Hume and Adam Smith. Biography Early life Hutcheson is thought to have been born at Drumalig in the parish of Saintfield, County Down, in modern-day Northern Ireland. He was the "son of a Presbyterian minister of Ulster-Scottish stock, who was born in Ireland" but whose roots were in Ayrshire in Scotland. Rothbard, Murray (24 February 2011Francis Hutcheson: Teacher of Adam Smith ''Mises Institute'' (excerpted from '' An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought'') Hutcheson was educated at Killyleagh, and went on to Scotland to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; – 25 August 1776) was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist who was best known for his highly influential system of empiricism, philosophical scepticism and metaphysical naturalism. Beginning with '' A Treatise of Human Nature'' (1739–40), Hume strove to create a naturalistic science of man that examined the psychological basis of human nature. Hume followed John Locke in rejecting the existence of innate ideas, concluding that all human knowledge derives solely from experience. This places him with Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and George Berkeley as an empiricist. Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. Hume argued that inductive reasoning and belief in causality cannot be justified rationally; instead, they result from custom and mental habit. We never actually perceive that one event causes another but only experience ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
