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The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation

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Alexander Broadie is Professor of Logic and Rhetoric at Glasgow University- a chair once occupied by Adam Smith author of "Wealth of Nations". This book, "The Scottish Enlightenment", written for the general reader, is a great treatise on a most astonishing period of Scottish history during the 18th century. Broadie writes; "that what gave the Scottish Enlightenment its character as a distinct historical movement was the complex set of relations with a group of geniuses and other immensely creative people living in each others intellectual pockets. Broadie writes about the leading Scottish luminaries in the fields of science, philosophy, history, economics, and the arts. Men such as Hume, Smith, Reid, Ferguson and others ideas had an immense influence on the great thinkers of Europe as well as our founding fathers here in America.

The term "Enlightenment" suggests emergence from darkness. There are two essential features of the enlightenment. First, a demand that people think for themselves. You do not take ideas on faith but you inquire study and observe for yourself. Second, social virtue of tolerance of ideas. The state and church cannot punish one for their ideas. This allows literati of men to meet and exchange ideas on a plethora of subjects and to spread these ideas through their writings so that other literati in Europe can comment and react to them. Thinking becomes a civil activity with ideas in the public domain. These men love liberty and are looking to build a better society for humanity. They believe that if morality is about anything it is about - protecting the civilized values vested in society. No wonder these men had a great influence on our founding fathers!

If you are truly interested in a classical education put this book on the top of your reading list! I recommend this book for anyone interested in philosophy, history, political science, and history of America's founding era.

I came to this book as a general reader with only the slightest knowledge of the Scottish Enlightenment and, to be honest, no appreciation of its significant and lasting impact on religious, political, economic, scientific, and aesthetic thinking right into the present day. On the back cover of the book, the Edinburgh Review is quoted and it is worth repeating: "an accessible primer on the main ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment." Broadie's book is accessible and I am all the more grateful for that fact as I reflect on the relevance of the ideas of the Enlightenment to my Western identity. In that sense, this is not dry history but rather essential content and context for today's political and "culture wars" and, indeed, why we resist the barbarian's demand that we submit and return to the 7th century. Mind you, that's just me talking; Broadies's "The Scottish Enlightenment" is not a polemic. It is forthright, unbiased history without any agenda other than, well, providing the reader with "an accessible primer" on the Scottish Enlightenment. I highly recommend this book. Important stuff, well delivered. Thank you, Alexander Broadie.

As a person of mildly above average intelligence and a very broad range of interests, I often have friends suggest that I should try out for Jeopardy. My standard [and honest] response [regardless of whether the comment was meant as a compliment or an insult] is that I have incredibly large gaps in my knowledge and I'd probably stink at Jeopardy. Alexander Broadie and his scholarly AND entertaining book The Scottish Enlightenment came to rescue me from one of my more embarrassing knowledge gaps. You'd've figured a person with some Scottish blood in his veins and who teaches at a high school that has a Scottish theme and a Highlander as a mascot would know a whole bunch about the pivotal period in history know as the Scottish Enlightenment?! The knowledge gap surfaced when I read Jack Repcheck's recent biography of James Hutton [The Man Who Found Time]. I researched the available literature on the Scottish Enlightenment and Broadie's book appeared to have the qualities needed to plug my knowledge gap. Written for the interested reader, The Scottish Enlightenment was scholarly enough to give me the short course that I wanted, but interesting and idiosyncratic enough to avoid reading like a textbook. It left me feeling quite satisfied about my knowledge of the Scottish Enlightenment and, like any good book, left me with a few questions to explore further [the connection between the Scottish Enlightenment and the American Revolution - enquiring minds want to know!]. I highly recommend Alexander Broadie's book to anyone with an interest in history, Scotland, the Enlightenment, or the Scottish Enlightenment.

The Scottish Enlightenment

There are periods associated with great intellectual achievement; the Golden Age of Pericles; the art and architecture of the Italian Renaissance; the literary and philosophical genius of fin-de-siecle Vienna; the Dutch Grand Masters and the Golden Age of Holland; Victorian England and the St. Petersburg of Peter the Great who brought the culture of the West to the previously isolated Russia.

Then there is the lesser known Scottish Enlightenment, which brought together some of the finest minds in intellectual history. Pure and applied science flourished at the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. Scientists developed new approaches to physics, chemistry, optics, mathematics and medicine. William Thompson (Later Lord Kelvin) developed major principles of thermodynamics; James Watt developed the steam engine, and William Cullen, a physician and chemist explored new frontiers, James Clerk Maxwell explained the mysteries of Saturn's rings and developed the principle of electromagnetism. James Hutton founded the modern science of geology which was expanded upon by James Playfair. The botanist Robert Brown discovered the important principle of Brownian Motion which was later to turn up in Einstein's theory of relativity. Visitors to Edinburgh were astonished that so much brilliance was to be encountered in this intellectual incubator in the cold, inhospitable climate of the Hebrides.

In recent years, there has been an outpouring of scholarly studies of the Scottish Enlightenment, among them Alexander Broadie's "The Scottish Enlightenment: The Historical Age of the Historical Nation" and "Crowded with Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment - Edinburgh's Moment of the Mind" by James Buchan.Crowded with Genius: The Scottish Enlightenment: Edinburgh's Moment of the Mind Most studies of the Scottish Enlightenment begin with David Hume and Francis Hutcheson , the most important moral philosophers of the movement, and Adam Smith, the first modern economist. A key element of their thought was skepticism - a refusal to accept on their face the arguments of ecclesiastic authority.
Within a relatively short time, the independent work of these various intellectuals began to circulate among the others, resulting in a synergistic effect. Broadie argues that enlighten-ment is more than freedom of thought, it is freedom of expression, without fear of reprisals from authorities.

How a grimy, overcrowded, heavily fortified Medieval city like Edinburgh became a vibrant, social intellectual center is the story of this book. Broadie occupies the same professorial seat at Glasgow University as Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics. The University has had, since its founding in 1451 prominent Enlightenment figures including Smith, Hucheson, physicist Lord Kelvin, James Watt, and numerous politicians including two British prime ministers and missionary=explorer David Livingston.
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