The Scottish Enlightenment: everything you wanted to know

Summary

History Extra Podcast: The Scottish Enlightenment – Everything You Wanted to Know

Episode Release Date: May 31, 2025
Host: Ellie Cawthorn
Guest: Professor Craig Smith, University of Glasgow

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Introduction to the Scottish Enlightenment

In this episode of the History Extra Podcast, host Ellie Cawthorn delves deep into the Scottish Enlightenment—a pivotal period of intellectual and cultural flourishing in 18th-century Scotland. To explore this transformative era, Ellie converses with Professor Craig Smith, an esteemed historian from the University of Glasgow, who provides comprehensive insights into the movement's origins, key figures, and lasting legacy.

Defining the Scottish Enlightenment

Professor Craig Smith begins by defining the Scottish Enlightenment as a "kind of outpouring of artistic and academic and scientific achievement that took place in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century" (02:37). This period saw Scotland emerge as a forefront of the broader European Enlightenment through the contributions of prominent philosophers like David Hume, historians such as William Robertson, and economists like Adam Smith.

Timeframe and Scope

When asked about the specific period, Professor Smith acknowledges the debate among historians but primarily dates the Scottish Enlightenment from 1740 to 1790 (03:15). This era marked the high point of the movement, beginning with David Hume's publication of "A Treatise of Human Nature" and concluding with Adam Smith's death.

Primary Fields of Focus

Initially, the Scottish Enlightenment emphasized the social sciences, particularly politics, economics, moral philosophy, and history (04:29). Over time, the scope broadened to include the natural sciences and the arts, reflecting a more interdisciplinary approach. This foundational work laid the groundwork for what we now recognize as the social sciences.

Philosophical Underpinnings of Enlightenment

Professor Smith explains that the Enlightenment was rooted in the belief that the pursuit of reason and science could illuminate and improve human societies. This movement aimed to counteract the "darkness of superstition, religious oppression, and political tyranny" with "modern methods of science and philosophy" (04:44). This pragmatic approach distinguished the Scottish Enlightenment from its European counterparts by focusing on practical improvements rather than solely theoretical advancements.

Unique Characteristics of the Scottish Enlightenment

A significant distinction of the Scottish Enlightenment, as highlighted by Professor Smith, was its practical orientation towards improvement. Unlike the French Enlightenment, which was often more radical and anti-clerical, the Scottish thinkers were generally more gradualistic and less politically radical (14:16). They favored incremental changes and the enhancement of existing institutions over revolutionary upheavals.

Key Centers and the Spread of Ideas

Initially concentrated in Scotland's urban centers—Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen—the Enlightenment's ideas eventually permeated smaller towns through discussion clubs, libraries, and improved local education (06:40). These philosophical discussion clubs became hubs for intellectual exchange, fostering a widespread dissemination of Enlightenment ideals across the country.

Connection with the Broader European Enlightenment

The Scottish Enlightenment was both influenced by and influential upon the wider European Enlightenment. Scotland maintained strong intellectual connections with Dutch and French universities, enabling the exchange of ideas. Scottish philosophers like Adam Smith and David Hume gained recognition across Europe, with their works being translated into French and German, thereby shaping continental thought on morality, law, politics, and economics (11:07).

Interdisciplinary Innovations: Medicine, Art, and Architecture

While often overshadowed by philosophers and economists, medicine and the natural sciences played a crucial role in the Scottish Enlightenment. Figures such as Joseph Black and William Cullen made significant strides in medical and scientific advancements, demonstrating the era's interdisciplinary nature (21:39).

In the realm of art and architecture, the Adam family pioneered a grand classical style exemplified by Edinburgh's New Town—a physical manifestation of Enlightenment ideals. Additionally, artists like Henry Raeburn and writers such as Robert Burns contributed to a rich cultural tapestry that intertwined with philosophical and scientific progress (23:25).

Key Figures of the Movement

Professor Smith identifies Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, and Adam Smith as the central pillars of the Scottish Enlightenment (26:29). Hutcheson, as the Professor of Moral Philosophy at Glasgow, mentored Adam Smith and influenced David Hume. David Hume himself was not only a renowned philosopher but also a prolific historian and essayist. Adam Smith, famed for "The Wealth of Nations", also authored "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", which offers accessible entry points into Enlightenment thought.

The Role of Education and Intellectual Circulation

Education was vital to the movement's success. Scottish universities, particularly Glasgow and Edinburgh, underwent significant reforms that emphasized modern philosophical and scientific teachings over traditional curricula. This educational excellence produced a cadre of well-educated individuals who propelled the Enlightenment forward. Ideas spread through public lectures, discussion societies, and the proliferation of publications and periodicals, making Enlightenment thought accessible to a broader audience (09:24; 19:59).

Gender Dynamics and the Absence of Women

A notable critique of the Scottish Enlightenment, as discussed by Professor Smith, is the lack of female participation. Unlike the French Enlightenment, where women played active roles as salon hosts and intellectual contributors, the Scottish movement remained predominantly male-dominated (28:12). Women were largely excluded from the discussion clubs and societies, and few became published authors. While some women corresponded with Enlightenment figures, their contributions remained limited and under-recognized.

Dark Underpinnings: Imperialism and Social Inequities

Professor Smith confronts the lesser-discussed darker aspects of the Scottish Enlightenment. The wealth generated during this period was significantly tied to imperialism, including trade with tobacco plantations in North America reliant on slave labor and the East India Company’s activities in India (30:11). While some Enlightenment thinkers like John Miller and Adam Smith criticized slavery and imperialism, the economic prosperity of Scottish cities like Glasgow was built on these exploitative practices.

Additionally, the Enlightenment's rhetoric of "improvement" often carried condescending views toward other cultures. Scots advocated for the civilizing of Highland communities, reflecting an ideology that viewed certain societal groups as "savages" needing enlightenment—a stance that modern audiences find uncomfortable and problematic (32:58).

Intellectual Debates within the Enlightenment

One of the central intellectual debates during the Scottish Enlightenment revolved around understanding human nature. Thinkers sought to comprehend what motivated human behavior, balancing rationality with emotions. They argued that passions and sentiments were integral to human motivation and moral philosophy, challenging the notion of humans as purely rational beings (17:57). This debate influenced various disciplines, including moral philosophy, economics, and sociology.

Recommendations for Further Exploration

For those interested in delving into Scottish Enlightenment ideas, Professor Smith recommends starting with more accessible works like David Hume's essays and Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments." These texts provide engaging and clear insights into the era's philosophical discourse without the complexity of more substantial works like Hume's "Treatise on Human Nature." (32:58).

Legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment

The enduring legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment is evident in multiple facets of modern society. The term itself signifies the profound impact Scotland had on shaping contemporary academic disciplines and public policy. The movement's emphasis on practical application of scientific and philosophical knowledge influenced subsequent ideologies such as utilitarianism and socialism, advocating for the use of knowledge to effect societal improvement (34:39).

Moreover, the Enlightenment fostered a tradition where academic inquiry is intertwined with public policy, a principle that continues to underpin modern universities and governmental institutions. The interdisciplinary spirit of the Scottish Enlightenment also paved the way for the specialization and diversification seen in today's academic and scientific communities.

Conclusion

The Scottish Enlightenment was a multifaceted movement that not only propelled Scotland into the intellectual vanguard of Europe but also left an indelible mark on various academic and societal frameworks that persist today. Despite its progressive strides, the movement also grappled with inherent contradictions and social inequities, reflecting the complex nature of historical transformations.

Notable Quotes:

• "The Scottish Enlightenment was a kind of outpouring of artistic and academic and scientific achievement that took place in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century." – Craig Smith 02:37

• "They believed that human beings were driven ultimately by their passions, by their sentiments and their feelings, and that those were not things that could be ignored." – Craig Smith 17:57

• "I think the Scottish Enlightenment is part of this wider European and indeed global movement or phenomenon of Enlightenment." – Craig Smith 04:44

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This summary was crafted using the transcript provided and adheres to the guidelines for engaging, detailed, and well-structured content, incorporating key quotes and maintaining a natural flow for readers unfamiliar with the original podcast episode.

Transcript

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[Ellie Cawthorn]

Welcome to the History Extra Podcast. Fascinating historical conversations from the makers of BBC History Magazine. In everything from the social sciences and technology to art and architecture, 18th century Scotland witnessed a flowering of ideas and innovation. But what made the Enlightenment in Scotland different to the rest of Europe? Who were some of its key thinkers? And why were so few women involved? To answer the key questions on the Scottish Enlightenment, I spoke to Professor Craig Smith from the University of Glasgow. Let's begin then, Craig, with a real basic question that we need to know before going any further. What was the Scottish Enlightenment?

[Craig Smith]

The Scottish Enlightenment was a kind of outpouring of artistic and academic and scientific achievement that took place in Scotland in the second half of the 18th century. And it involved some very prominent philosophers like David Hume, historians like William Robertson, economists like Adam Smith, who really brought Scotland to the forefront of the wider European Enlightenment.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

You mentioned that this happened in the second half of the 18th century. Can we nail that down anymore, or is it one of these big historical trends that's quite hard to pin an end date and a start date to.

[Craig Smith]

There's a huge debate about this, as you might imagine, amongst historians. So some historians trace it back into the early years of the 18th century, some even back into the 17th century. But I tend to view them as kind of pre Enlightenment or precursors, and that the high period of the Scottish Enlightenment, the thing that we talk about as the Scottish Enlightenment, ran from about 1740 to around about 1790. That's really the high point of the movement from the publication of David Hume's Treatise on Human Nature to the death of Adam Smith. That's the timeframe that I go with.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So you mentioned a couple of fields of learning, but I wonder if you could pin those down a bit more. What were the main areas of focus for the Scottish Enlightenment in particular?

[Craig Smith]

Yeah, so, I mean, in recent years, people have tried to look at the width or the range of different areas and talked about the natural sciences and the arts a bit more. But traditionally, when people talked about the Scottish Enlightenment, they talked really about the social sciences. They talked about politics, economics, moral philosophy and particularly history. The kind of genesis of what we now know as the social sciences occurred really at this time in 18th century Scotland. And that's a big focus of a lot of these thinkers.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I wonder if we could talk a bit more about the term and the idea of Enlightenment. So what exactly was going on here? What were some of the philosophical underpinnings of this idea of Enlightenment?

[Craig Smith]

Well, I think the Scottish Enlightenment is part of this wider European and indeed global movement or phenomenon of Enlightenment. And usually it's traced in its essence to the belief that the pursuit of reason and science can enlighten or can spread light through human societies, that the development of modern science and modern philosophical arguments was somehow an antidote to the darkness of superstition, of religious oppression and of political tyranny. So that spirit, if you want to put it that way, is what makes the term Scottish Enlightenment something that has some kind of purchase in talking about the period historically, because these thinkers saw themselves as involved in something which was, we might say, progressive, they would probably say improving, and which was deeply linked to the modern methods of science and philosophy.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

It's really interesting what you just said there, that they saw themselves in that way. Was the term Enlightenment used at the time?

[Craig Smith]

Not really. So, I mean, it was picked up later, particularly by some on the continent. In Scotland, they actually used the term improvement more than Enlightenment. And that, I think, tells us a couple of things. One is that it did share this kind of progressive, hopefully, kind of ameliorative and emancipatory spirit, but it also. It was a little bit more practical. It was about doing things that actually made a difference. Rather than writing grand theories and making claims about the rights of men, they were interested in actually making things, improving things. And that, I think, is one of the characteristics that makes enlightenment in Scotland different, perhaps, than from in other places.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yeah. And I definitely want to get into some of the specific circumstances in Scotland that, as you say, made enlightenment unique there. But before we do, what were the main centres of this Scottish improvement then? Was it focused only on the big cities, or could you kind of feel the sentiment across Scotland?

[Craig Smith]

Yeah, so I think that's something that unfolds during the course of this time period in the 18th century. Initially, it is the urban centers at that time. So it's Glasgow, it's Edinburgh and it's Aberdeen, and it's around the universities that these things coalesce, largely. But what you see during the course of the century is that these ideas spread out and you see that one of the key phenomena of the Scottish Enlightenment is these kind of philosophical discussion clubs that get set up in Glasgow and Edinburgh and Aberdeen at these times. And towards the end of the 18th century, you actually see these cropping up in really quite small places, along with the spread of libraries and discussion groups and improvements in local education services as well. So I think you see it spreading through the country, but obviously most of the activity is taking place in Glasgow, in Edinburgh and in Aberdeen.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So now I'd like to bring in a question from Hamish Ross, who's got in touch on Facebook and he asked, how and why does Scotland, in less than a generation, move from rebellion and Jacobitism to a centre of enlightenment? So I guess he's really asking about what's going on in Scotland at this time that this all kicks off.

[Craig Smith]

It's a question that's kind of puzzled a lot of people, and they've talked about various different, if you like, candidates that explain it. And I think my view is that it's some kind of mixture of several features. The first feature that's important is a kind of political stability that comes about following the defeat of the final Jacobite rebellion. So prior to that, a set of institutions and ideas are developing in Glasgow and Edinburgh in particular, and once the Jacobite threat has been removed, the space has been created for those institutions to really take off. So that's one aspect of it. A degree of political stability becomes Possible. On the back of that, what you see is a really quite serious growth in the economy of Scotland, which was relatively poor, relatively agricultural, in fact, predominantly agricultural in the earlier part of the 18th century, but becomes by the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, one of the most advanced economies in Europe. So there's real economic growth and along with that, urbanization, population densities increasing, all of the kind of things that we see through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. So that's a feature. I think another feature is that you've also got a group of people who are well educated and able to take advantage of that, and that's the people that become the backbone of the Scottish Enlightenment.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Well, I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about that education. Was Scotland a particularly well educated nation as a whole at this time, or was it more that there was this kind of select clique, crew of people?

[Craig Smith]

I think there's a kind of. Well, you might call it a myth that Scotland always had this wonderful education system. And I think that is a myth. I think that there was very good education available in a number of places and that some people were able to take advantage of it, but it wasn't by any means universal. The universal provision of education was directed towards providing literacy so that people could read the Bible. So it came out of the Reformation in Scotland and the central focus on your own ability to understand Scripture. So that was there. But what then followed on from that was really the fact that a number of, I suppose we would call them members of the kind of emerging middle class, were able to take advantage of that very good level of education that was provided there and then develop onwards into the universities. And it's there that we really do see a difference, because I think it's pretty clear that even the Scots themselves at that time understood that whatever was happening in the universities in Glasgow and Edinburgh was better than what was happening in the universities elsewhere. And that was where the real education made the real difference, the changes and reforms that had been made to the university education system. So what happened really was you got a bunch of bright young men from relatively modest backgrounds who were given a really good foundational education and then could take that on to a really excellent university education and from there build these careers as kind of public intellectuals, we would probably say today.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And what were the key universities? Then?

[Craig Smith]

It was Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, where there were two universities, two colleges, Marshall and King's. St Andrews was still in existence, but it was relatively a bit of a backwater at that time, so it was a little bit different, but the main institutions were Glasgow and Edinburgh.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Well, apologies to St Andrews. They caught up later, didn't they? So I wonder if you could tell us a bit more about how thinking in Scotland at this time was connected to Enlightenment thinking more widely across Europe. How much it was influenced by it, but also how much it influenced Europe as well.

[Craig Smith]

I think in terms of the way Europe influenced the Scots, I think there was always very strong intellectual connections between the Scottish universities and the Dutch and French universities, and I think that that kept up through the 18th century. A lot of Scottish students used to study law in the Netherlands, and so there was a real connection there, I think, in terms of the connection to the idea of Enlightenment from Europe. The key thing that happens quite early in the Scottish universities is that they begin to stop teaching the traditional curriculum based on ancient authors and start to introduce modern philosophers, both moral philosophers and also natural philosophers, as they would call it, natural scientists, as we would call it. And there the main figure is Isaac Newton. And so he is absorbed by a man called Colin MacLaurin and introduced into the university system in Scotland very early on. And that means that the scientific method that Newton develops becomes hugely influential in what the Scots see as their project or methodology. So that Enlightenment belief in science and philosophy, which is developing in England and in France, hugely influential in what Scots think, is important in terms of how they influenced Europe. On the other side, that's really quite interesting because very quickly, this is the move from a place where people really didn't talk much about Scotland or refer to it to, you know, by the end of the century, it's famous for education, it's famous for learning and, as we would say, for enlightenment. And I think one of the things that's quite interesting about that is that the admirers of the Scots recognize that they have a particular set of concerns or contributions which have to do with the study of history and society. And so very influential European figures, people like Voltaire, Rousseau, Immanuel Kant even, are reading Scottish philosophers, particularly with a focus on what they have to say about morality, about law, about politics and economics. And so that that does shape the way people start to think about these issues on the Continent. So you find the main Scottish thinkers are translated reasonably quickly into French and into German, and people begin to study them in a continental setting. So I think that that reputation that the Scots have for studying social change, I suppose, is the central point, becomes one of the things that interests the wider European Enlightenment in what's going on in Scotland.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

You've touched quite nicely there on a question we've had in from one of our Instagram followers, Traiska, who's asked how the Scottish Enlightenment was unique. You mentioned earlier this idea about improvement, practical applications of this learning, but also this impetus about social change. Is there anything else that you'd highlight?

[Craig Smith]

I think that focus is right. So practical improvement, the application of science to improving living standards and changing the way people live, that's a major part of it. The interest in social change, I think is important as well because that, that is partly what drives that. So they want to understand how what they would consider backward societies become modern societies. And if they can understand that, then they can bring that process about. They can kind of deliberately improve things, deliberately change things. So that, I think is central to it. I think the other thing which is often pointed out as characteristic of the Scottish Enlightenment is that they are less radical in many respects than the reputation of particularly the French Enlightenment. So one of the things that the French Enlightenment becomes famous for is the fact that it's anti clerical, it's against the church. And while the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment are certainly against what they would call superstition and enthusiasm, many of them are actually ministers of the Church of Scotland. So there isn't an anti religion element to the Scottish Enlightenment. David Hume might be an exception to that. But for the most part they're quite comfortable with Christianity and with a kind of rational theology as the basis of much of their moral philosophy. So they're less radical in that sense. And they're also, by the time we get to the end of the 18th century, they're not interested in revolution. So many of the French Enlightenment thinkers and thinkers like Thomas Paine in America are arguing that Enlightenment values should generate revolution. The Scots are far more gradualistic. They're interested in improvement and changing things without losing what they had in the existing stable institutions that they saw themselves as benefiting from. So they're less politically radical, perhaps, than the American and French Enlightenment thinkers you.

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[Ellie Cawthorn]

Switch upfront payment of $45 for 3 month plan equivalent to $15 per month required intro rate first 3 months only, then full price plan options available, taxes and fees, extra fee, full [e-mail] which is very interesting considering that rebellious history that Hamish Ross alluded to earlier. Yeah, as you've kind of highlighted in that, you know, the Enlightenment wasn't one set of thinking, there were lots of debates within it. What were some of the biggest intellectual debates in Scotland at that time?

[Craig Smith]

So I think the one that stands out as a kind of thread through the conversation by a lot of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers is that they want to understand human nature and they want to understand what it is that motivates human beings and why we do what we do and we believe what we believe. And if you look at the theories of the main thinkers in that tradition in the Scottish Enlightenment, so Francis Hutcheson, the kind of senior or elder figure of David Hume, Adam Smith, Thomas Reid, they all develop answers to a set of questions about how the human mind operates and how human beings form beliefs about the world and how they form beliefs about how they should live their lives. And one of the characteristics of that is that they believe that the way that you do that is not by sitting down and just kind of going, oh well, I think the human mind is like this. They believed that you studied real human beings, you studied real societies, and you generalized from that. And they believed that human beings were driven ultimately by their passions, by their sentiments and their feelings, and that those were not things that could be ignored. So even the most skeptical of them, in terms of what you think about the Nature of the human passions and feelings were willing to admit that they were there and they were generating the motives that drove human beings. So we're not purely rational creatures, and so morality can't be purely rational. And that set of questions, I think, is one which challenged all of the main thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment in one way or another. And they all developed a set of responses to it. They felt those questions had to be answered before you could ask other questions. You know, you have to know what a human being is, what moves them, why they think the way they do, why they feel the way they feel, before you can start talking about transforming societies or changing the way that humans behave.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So these are like really big ideas that are emerging out of these cities. But how did these ideas circulate?

[Craig Smith]

Yeah, so I think there's a couple of ways that develop quite quickly and maybe kind of drive the Scottish Enlightenment forward, actually quite prominently. The first is through these clubs and societies that I mentioned, which were really quite widely subscribed to. So some were small and exclusive, others were almost large public events. So, for example, Adam Smith gave a series of public lectures in Edinburgh before he became a professor at Glasgow. And people paid to attend those lectures because there was this kind of interest in what Smith was talking about, a kind of appetite for public intellectual discussion. So there was a market for. For it there. And people went along to these events at the various societies and clubs and absorbed the ideas. So that was a really important one. Another way in which the idea started to spread was through publications, both through the growth in libraries through the 18th century, but also through the growth of newspapers and periodicals that began to circulate quite widely and were used by people as a form of entertainment. They would sit at home and read these things aloud to each other, which seems strange nowadays, but that was entertainment of an evening. So the ideas did kind of. They spread quite widely through the population relatively quickly. I don't think everybody in Scotland in the 18th century was sitting having high level philosophical discussions after dinner, but a relatively large chunk of the population were doing so.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

I wonder if we could talk about some specific fields now. So Imogen Blaine has asked about the rise of professional medicine and surgery, which is something that I think probably a lot of people associate with the history of ed. Where does that fit into this story?

[Craig Smith]

Historically, it was kind of underappreciated just how important medicine and the natural sciences were to the Scottish Enlightenment. But the more that historians have looked into it, the more central it becomes, not just because it tells us about these Figures like William Cullen and the Hunter Brothers and so on, but also because it shows us that the others were actually interested in it as well. The people who we might have just focused on as historians or philosophers, they were going along to talks by the medical men and by the surgeons, and they had a genuine interest in the advances that were being made in those areas as well. So I think in terms of how the natural sciences were being applied, that was a very important area. And you have people, if you like, experimenting and surveying and trying to categorize different parts of the human body or human experience, just in the same way that the philosophers are doing that for the human mind, and they're doing that in a setting, again, which is also connected to this idea of improvement. Because what you're wanting to do is improve health, improve the medical sciences, through advances in surgery and in understanding how the human body works. So I think that's absolutely vital to understanding what's going on here. So figures that are perhaps less well known than David Hume and Adam Smith, figures like Joseph Black, like James Hutton, like William Cullen, all of these people are making important scientific and medical advances in their own right and are doing so as part of this group of thinkers.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

It's interesting how those ideas are all kind of tied in together, whereas now they'd be seen as quite separate fields. On that note, what about art and design and architecture? Did that intersect with any of this at all?

[Craig Smith]

It did. I think one of the interesting things, again, about the Scottish Enlightenment is that they were fascinated by arts more generally. So, again, that was central to all of these discussion societies. It was really important in the universities at that time as well, that these things were part of what was seen as a wider movement towards improvement. Or another term that they used quite a lot was politeness. That was seen as an improvement in manners and in the way people lived. And one of the ways you did that was by appreciating literature and appreciating the arts. So what you get are some important advances in that area in terms of architecture. It's the Adam family that are the central kind of figures there, and they develop a very grand classical style of architecture, which is perhaps best exemplified by the New Town in Edinburgh and that that's sometimes seen as a kind of physical embodiment of the Scottish Enlightenment. If you want to know the difference between Scotland before Enlightenment and after, you look at the old town and then you look at the new town, and that shows you the spirit that was different between the two of them. So they were really Important you have artists like, I think, I suppose the most important one would be Raeburn, Henry Rayburn, who was a portraitist. You have authors like Tobias Smollett, poets like Robert Burns. You have figures like Hugh Blair, for example, who. He's a minister of the Church of Scotland, very important preacher and writer of sermons. But he's also the professor of rhetoric and Belles Letra at Edinburgh and he's a professor of what we now call English literature, possibly the first in the world. And he's training people to become better readers and better writers. So all of that stuff, I think is absolutely central to the culture that's going on. They are real appreciation of the art and I think that's central to their understanding of improvement. They genuinely believed that we became better people the more we interacted and experienced cultural and artistic endeavors.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

And it's so interesting how all of these people are open minded to different fields. So, you know, scientists are open minded to the importance of art, artists are open minded to the importance of philosophy. That's kind of key to all of this, right?

[Craig Smith]

Absolutely. And these people don't make distinctions between types of academic inquiry in the way that we do today. And it's really interesting to see that because if I go and look at something like Adam Smith's library and the books that he had in it, he had books on mathematics, on architecture, on the natural sciences, on music, on history, on all these different things. A huge polymathic range of interests that we just really don't see that nowadays. People have become specialists in a way. That just wasn't the case for this group of people. I mean, they're writing on anything from, in the case of Lord Kames, appreciating the fine arts to manure and how to improve agriculture on a farm. And they're doing that with the same seriousness and application to both topics.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So you've thrown out lots of different names in our conversation. If you had to really narrow it down to a couple of super key or most significant individuals, who would you nominate?

[Craig Smith]

I'd say if you want to know who's the most influential on the main generation, it's Francis Hutcheson, he's slightly older than them. He's the professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, he teaches Adam Smith, he's friendly with Lord Kames, he influences David Hume's philosophy. So he's a key figure in the generation of it. But of the main generation, the kind of central figures, I think, in terms of the way the legacy of the movement has unfolded to us, the Figures would be people like David Hume, who we know as a philosopher, but who was equally famous as a historian and an essayist in the 18th century. Adam Smith, who was a moral philosopher and political economist. And then you get into a range of slightly lesser figures who were central to the movement but are perhaps less well appreciated in the contemporary world. So some of those are, for example, the natural scientists that we mentioned, the. SO Joseph Black, William Cullen. But others are important figures in the development of the social sciences. Someone like Adam Ferguson, who was the professor of moral philosophy at Edinburgh, who's a very important figure in the history of sociology. And similarly, John Miller, who was a professor of law at Glasgow, very influential in the development of social theory in the 19th century. So there's lots and lots of these figures who you could pick out. And I think sometimes, depending on what your interest is, what your focus is, you can emphasize some more than others. But if you were to push me on the two, I would say it's Hume and Smith that sit at the center of it.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yep. And they're probably the most recognizable names today as well. So for many reasons, structural, societal reasons, all of the people that we've discussed so far have been men. Were there any women that we should recognize or that were part of this scene?

[Craig Smith]

This is one of the kind of areas of fascination about this because. Because if you look at the French Enlightenment, women play an important role as hosts of Salon, as translators of books, as interlocutors to many of the key thinkers. But as a couple of historians have pointed out, that's not really true of the Scottish Enlightenment. It's a very male dominated phenomenon. Most of the clubs and societies were exclusively male. And it's only later on in the 18th century that you begin to see women being admitted to public lectures at the universities and to the events that are being held in Edinburgh. So what you see are a few women who are correspondents writing to the figures of the Scottish Enlightenment and asking them about their ideas. But none of them then go on to become published authors in the way that the other Scots did. And you also see a next generation. So the children of several of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment become writers and authors in their own right. And several of them are women. So there's a puzzle about it. I think one part is the fact that this club society model that came about was very masculine, often taking place in pubs and taverns. And that was one element of it, because women weren't. It wasn't appropriate for women to attend that kind of place. And so they were excluded as a result of that. And, you know, there are also, I think there's a kind of sense that something must have been going on. There must have been the spirit of inquiry and the fact that everybody's talking about that must have been taking place in some sense, in some way in the meetings of women in 18th century Scotland. But it's just very hard to get reliable evidence for what that would have looked like.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Yeah, yeah. It's an important aspect of it to acknowledge. And kind of on a similar note, the focus of all of this was progress and improvement and enlightenment. But is it all roses? Were there any darker undercurrents at play in the Scottish Enlightenment?

[Craig Smith]

I think there are several that need to be acknowledged. The one that's gained a lot of attention in recent years has been the fact that the wealth of 18th century Scotland, or a large part of the wealth of 18th century Scotland, was based on imperialism. Scotland got access, access to the wider British English markets in North America and India as a result of the act of Union. And a lot of Scottish people became engaged in trade with the tobacco plantations in North America, obviously grounded in slavery, with sugar plantations in the Caribbean and with the East India Company and its operations in the Indian subcontinent. So there's a lot of wealth pouring in Scotland from exploitative practices around the world. And many of the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment are uncomfortable with that. It has to be said, to one degree or another, perhaps the more vocal of them, people like John Miller and Adam Smith, openly criticized slavery and imperialism as part of their writings. But you have to acknowledge that the wealth that built Glasgow as a city was largely in the initial stages, founded on the tobacco trade and that was founded on slavery. So that's controversial. I think one that you've mentioned a moment ago, the relative silence on the role of women in society is another one. So you would think somebody who's talking, or a group of people who are fascinated by social change and how society constructs beliefs about how people should live should be more interested in that. They're not really those who do write on it, figures like John Miller in particular, are kind of, I think, outliers to the general attitude that kind of ignores the role of women in a lot of this. And I think the final one that people find uncomfortable is the fact that there is no political correctness in the way that they talk about societies that they see as unimproved. The people who live in these societies are savages or barbarians, and that's the words that they use. To describe them, and that that includes the best will in the world, a judgment about the fact that the way of life in those societies is inferior to the way of life of modern improved societies. And people might want to focus on what they say about other parts of the world. But to be honest, some of the strongest use of those terms is in Scotland itself, because they see the Highlanders ultimately as savages who need to be civilized. And in that case, improvement becomes an ideology. We will only be safe to pursue improvement in the Lowlands and the rest of Scotland if we civilize this bunch of people who are living up in the Highlands. And that's a quite deliberate public policy decisions that the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment endorse. And we would find simply the way they talk about people from different cultures very uncomfortable to listen to.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

So they were forward thinking in some ways, but obviously also of their time as well. Anybody who's thinking, do you know, I would like to be a bit enlightened and grapple with some of these big questions about what it means to be human. Is there anywhere you'd recommend starting to look into these ideas?

[Craig Smith]

I think a lot of people think to themselves. Well, I'll go to one of the big names. I'll go to David Hume, and I'll start with the Treatise of Human Nature. But I think throwing yourself into one of the most complex and serious books of philosophy ever written is probably the wrong way to get into the Scottish Enlightenment. And instead what I'd suggest is that you look at Hume's essays because they're funny and they're clear and they deal with serious issues in a nice, short, engaging way. They cover every kind of topic you can imagine thinking about, from politics to economics to the arts. So that I think is a nice place to start. And the other place I would suggest is a good place to start is Adam Smith's other books. Everybody knows the wealth of nations, but I think the Theory of Moral Sentiments is actually a really easy way into the serious moral philosophy of 18th century Scotland, because Smith takes very great care to use everyday examples. So each point he makes about how we form beliefs about the world and what we should do is illustrated by an example that we would still recognize today. And that's a nice way into this kind of way of thinking about are trying to understand human nature that's so central to what they're doing. So Hume's essays are the Theory of Moral Sentiments.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

Great. Well, I think those are two great tips. And finally, Craig, where can we see the legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment?

[Craig Smith]

Today, that's a really interesting question. I think one place you can see it is the fact that we have this term, the Scottish Enlightenment. You know, why did that phraseology develop? Because it, it refers to something. And what it refers to is the fact that there were some really serious advances that helped shape the world that we live in today. There was an American historian who had a book which called how the Scots Invented the Modern World and Everything in It. And that's, I think, an over claim. But if you look at the history of a whole range of our academic disciplines and scientific disciplines today, you find really significant, groundbreaking innovations made by thinkers who we consider as part of the Scottish Enlightenment. And I think that's interesting. So if you go back in almost any academic discipline you want to pick, you'll find one of these people somewhere as one of the founding fathers of it. And that's really interesting that it's not just one area, it's all these different areas we've been talking about where these figures are innovators. So I think that that's one real lasting impact they've had on the way that academic disciplines have developed. I think in terms of the way that they impacted on the way we live our lives, I think one of the things that they are serious about through this idea of improvement, was that you could use science to transform society, to inform public policy. And that's something that develops through the 19th century into utilitarianism and into the 20th century through socialist thinking about what is it that we want or how do we connect, rather what appears to be disinterested scientific inquiry to things that actually matter to people. And one side of that is technology. So how do we use discoveries to make our lives better? And the other side of it is how do we use the knowledge we now have about how human beings think and act to organize our societies in a more efficient way in a more effective fashion? I think that belief that, look, it's not just for disinterested academics or for universities to sit there and do what they do, ultimately what they're doing has practical applications and can lead to change. And that attitude, I think, is one that comes out of that practical impetus that the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment had. So I think you see them in the way that we take that for granted, that that's what we expect from our public policy and from our universities.

[Ellie Cawthorn]

That was Craig Smith talking to me. Ellie Cawthorn. Craig is professor of the History of Political Thought at the University of Glasgow and the author of the 2020 book. Adam Smith thanks for listening. This podcast was produced by Daniel Kramer Arden.