The book examines the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment, focusing on their conception of a commercial society. This focus captures both what the Scottish Enlightenment is now best known for as well as what contemporaneously most engaged its participants. This engagement critically involved a re-calibration of social norms and that, in turn, entailed a re-thinking of the constituents (institutions, behaviour and so on) of ‘society’. Central to this re-thinking was the Scots’ appreciation that the present had to be understood via the past. Among the book's key themes is the argument that th ... More

The book examines the writings of the Scottish Enlightenment, focusing on their conception of a commercial society. This focus captures both what the Scottish Enlightenment is now best known for as well as what contemporaneously most engaged its participants. This engagement critically involved a re-calibration of social norms and that, in turn, entailed a re-thinking of the constituents (institutions, behaviour and so on) of ‘society’. Central to this re-thinking was the Scots’ appreciation that the present had to be understood via the past. Among the book's key themes is the argument that the Scots’ idea of a commercial society represents simultaneously their diachronic analysis, where it is the latest stage in development from a society of hunter-gatherers, and their synchronic analysis of it as a society with a set of interlocking institutions. The book pays full attention to internal debates and conveys thereby some of the intellectual excitement that the development of these arguments occasioned. While the work of Adam Smith, David Hume, Adam Ferguson, John Millar, William Robertson and Lord Kames feature prominently other thinkers and pamphleteers are discussed.