The Liberal Ideal and the Demons of Empire: Theories of Imperialism from Adam Smith to Lenin

Adam Ferguson was a Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and a leading member of the Scottish Enlightenment. A friend of David Hume and Adam Smith, Ferguson was among the leading exponents of the Scottish Enlightenment’s attempts to develop a science of man and was among the first in the English speaking world to make use of the terms civilization, civil society, and political science. This book challenges many of the prevailing assumptions about Ferguson’s thinking. It explores how Ferguson sought to create a methodology for moral science that combined empirically based social theory with normative moralising with a view to supporting the virtuous education of the British elite. The Ferguson that emerges is far from the stereotyped image of a nostalgic republican sceptical about modernity, and instead is one much closer to the mainstream Scottish Enlightenment’s defence of eighteenth century British commercial society.

Download Full-text

Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474415019.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Christopher J. Berry

Keyword(s):

Intellectual History ◽

David Hume ◽

Adam Smith ◽

Detailed Examination ◽

Scottish Enlightenment ◽

Subsequent Work ◽

Retrospective Assessment ◽

The 1960S

A collection of essays by a leading scholar. The work selected spans several decades, which together with three new unpublished pieces, cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation of the Scottish Enlightenment as a whole while incorporating detailed examination of the work of David Hume and Adam Smith. There is, in addition, a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry’s personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment from the 1960s. Each of the previously published chapters includes a postscript where Berry comments on subsequent work and his own retrospective assessment. The recurrent themes are the ideas of sociability and socialisation, the Humean science of man and Smith’s analysis of the relation between commerce and morality.

Download Full-text

Adam Smith and Rousseau

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474422857.001.0001 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

Political Philosophy ◽

Political Economy ◽

Adam Smith ◽

Key Concepts ◽

History And Literature ◽

Edinburgh Review

Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith are two of the foremost thinkers of the European Enlightenment, thinkers who made seminal contributions to moral and political philosophy and who 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. This collection brings together an international and interdisciplinary group of Adam Smith and Rousseau scholars to provide an exploration of the key shared concerns of these two great thinkers in politics, philosophy, economics, history, and literature.

Download Full-text