From David Hume to Sarah Palin? The troubled search for common features of political ‘conservatism’: a reply to Özsel

The article examines the socio-economic causes of the outcome of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1936), which, as opposed to the Russian Civil War, resulted in the victory of the “Whites”. Choice of Spain as the object of comparison with Russia is justified not only by similarity of civil wars occurred in the two countries in the XX century, but also by a large number of common features in their history. Based on statistical data on the changes in economic well-being of different strata of Spanish population during several decades before the civil war, the authors formulate the hypothesis according to which the increase of real incomes of Spaniards engaged in agriculture is “responsible” for their conservative political sympathies. As a result, contrary to the situation in Russia, where the peasantry did not support the Whites, in Spain the peasants’ position predetermined the outcome of the confrontation resulting in the victory of the Spanish analogue of the Whites. According to the authors, the possibility of stable increase of Spanish peasants’ incomes was caused by the nation’s non-involvement in World War I and also by more limited, compared to Russia and some other countries, spending on creation of heavy (primarily military-related) industry in Spain.

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Adam Ferguson and the Idea of Civil Society

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474413275.001.0001 ◽

2019 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Craig Smith

Keyword(s):

Civil Society ◽

Moral Philosophy ◽

David Hume ◽

Adam Smith ◽

Scottish Enlightenment ◽

Commercial Society ◽

University Of Edinburgh ◽

English Speaking ◽

English Speaking World ◽

The University

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.

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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.

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Two Intellectual Landmarks in the Year 1749

Journal of Scottish Philosophy ◽

10.3366/jsp.2019.0231 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 101-123

Author(s):

Farhad Rassekh

Keyword(s):

Paradigm Shift ◽

David Hume ◽

Adam Smith ◽

Considerable Extent ◽

Monetary Theory ◽

Economic Theories ◽

Classical Economics ◽

Wealth Of Nations ◽

Economic Thinking

In the year 1749 Adam Smith conceived his theory of commercial liberty and David Hume laid the foundation of his monetary theory. These two intellectual developments, despite their brevity, heralded a paradigm shift in economic thinking. Smith expanded and promulgated his theory over the course of his scholarly career, culminating in the publication of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Hume elaborated on the constituents of his monetary framework in several essays that were published in 1752. Although Smith and Hume devised their economic theories in 1749 independently, these theories complemented each other and to a considerable extent created the structure of classical economics.

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George Hoggart Toulmin: politics and geology

Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History ◽

10.3366/jsbnh.1978.8.4.481 ◽

1978 ◽

Vol 8 (4) ◽

pp. 481-481

Author(s):

ROY PORTER

Keyword(s):

French Revolution ◽

Social Order ◽

Lower Class ◽

Great Distance ◽

The Earth ◽

Christian View ◽

The Social ◽

French Enlightenment ◽

Political Conservatism ◽

History Of

The physician George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) propounded his theory of the Earth in a number of works beginning with The antiquity and duration of the world (1780) and ending with his The eternity of the universe (1789). It bore many resemblances to James Hutton's "Theory of the Earth" (1788) in stressing the uniformity of Nature, the gradual destruction and recreation of the continents and the unfathomable age of the Earth. In Toulmin's view, the progress of the proper theory of the Earth and of political advancement were inseparable from each other. For he analysed the commonly accepted geological ideas of his day (which postulated that the Earth had been created at no great distance of time by God; that God had intervened in Earth history on occasions like the Deluge to punish man; and that all Nature had been fabricated by God to serve man) and argued they were symptomatic of a society trapped in ignorance and superstition, and held down by priestcraft and political tyranny. In this respect he shared the outlook of the more radical figures of the French Enlightenment such as Helvétius and the Baron d'Holbach. He believed that the advance of freedom and knowledge would bring about improved understanding of the history and nature of the Earth, as a consequence of which Man would better understand the terms of his own existence, and learn to live in peace, harmony and civilization. Yet Toulmin's hopes were tempered by his naturalistic view of the history of the Earth and of Man. For Time destroyed everything — continents and civilizations. The fundamental law of things was cyclicality not progress. This latent political conservatism and pessimism became explicit in Toulmin's volume of verse, Illustration of affection, published posthumously in 1819. In those poems he signalled his disapproval of the French Revolution and of Napoleonic imperialism. He now argued that all was for the best in the social order, and he abandoned his own earlier atheistic religious radicalism, now subscribing to a more Christian view of God. Toulmin's earlier geological views had run into considerable opposition from orthodox religious elements. They were largely ignored by the geological community in late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Britain, but were revived and reprinted by lower class radicals such as Richard Carlile. This paper is to be published in the American journal, The Journal for the History of Ideas in 1978 (in press).

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David Hume in his Private Correspondence

Scottish Affairs ◽

10.3366/scot.2011.0047 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 76 (First Serie (1) ◽

pp. 128-132

Author(s):

Paul Henderson Scott

Keyword(s):

David Hume ◽

Private Correspondence

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Beérkezett könyvek

Magyar Pszichológiai Szemle ◽

10.1556/mpszle.61.2006.4.8 ◽

2006 ◽

Vol 61 (4) ◽

pp. 657-658

Author(s):

Csaba Pléh

Keyword(s):

David Hume ◽

Complementary Nature

Arisztotelész: Lélekfilozófiai írások. (Fordította: Steiger Kornél) Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2006 David Hume: Értekezés az emberi természetről . (Fordította: Bence György) Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2006 Kelso, J. A. Scott és Engstrøm, David A.: The complementary nature. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006 Fehér Márta, Zemplén Gábor és Binzberger Viktor (szerk.): Értelem és történelem. L'Harmattan, Budapest, 2006 Márkus Attila: Neurológia. Pszichológia szakos hallgatók számára. Akadémiai Kiadó, Budapest, 2006 Cayton, H., Graham, N. és Warner, J.: Alzheimer-kór és a demencia egyéb fajtái . (Fordította: Nikowitz Krisztina) SpringMed Kiadó, Budapest, 2006 Houdé, Olivier: 10 leçons de psychologie et pédagogie . Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 2006 Velicskovszkij, Borisz M.: Kognyityivnaja nauka. Osznovi pszichologii poznanyija . Vol. I-II.Academa-Szmüszl. Moszkva, 2006 Fábri György (szerk.): A tudománykommunikáció értelme/értéke. Tudástársadalom Alapítvány, Budapest, 2006 Ropolyi László: Az Internet természete. Internetfilozófiai értekezés. Typotex, Budapest, 2006

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The Politics of Evangelical Identity

10.23943/princeton/9780691161303.001.0001 ◽

2014 ◽

Author(s):

Lydia Bean

Keyword(s):

Republican Party ◽

Religious Practice ◽

Religious Language ◽

Evangelical Christianity ◽

Conservative Politics ◽

Evangelical Churches ◽

Political Conservatism ◽

Evangelical Identity ◽

Moral Attitudes ◽

The U.S

It is now a common refrain among liberals that Christian Right pastors and television pundits have hijacked evangelical Christianity for partisan gain. This book challenges this notion, arguing that the hijacking metaphor paints a fundamentally distorted picture of how evangelical churches have become politicized. The book reveals how the powerful coalition between evangelicals and the Republican Party is not merely a creation of political elites who have framed conservative issues in religious language, but is anchored in the lives of local congregations. Drawing on research at evangelical churches near the U.S. border with Canada, this book compares how American and Canadian evangelicals talk about politics in congregational settings. While Canadian evangelicals share the same theology and conservative moral attitudes as their American counterparts, their politics are quite different. On the U.S. side of the border, political conservatism is woven into the very fabric of everyday religious practice. The book shows how subtle partisan cues emerge in small group interactions as members define how “we Christians” should relate to others in the broader civic arena, while liberals are cast in the role of adversaries. It explains how the most explicit partisan cues come not from clergy but rather from lay opinion leaders who help their less politically engaged peers to link evangelical identity to conservative politics. This book demonstrates how deep the ties remain between political conservatism and evangelical Christianity in America.

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