Scholars are divided about when and why the Scottish Enlightenment came to a close. Yet they are largely agreed that by 1820 the golden age of Scottish philosophy had passed. Nineteenth-century Scottish cultural is then largely described in term of romantic reaction, kailyard kitsch, Highlandism and religious disputation. This project seeks to challenge that consensus. It explores how a culture of Scottish thought continued deep into the nineteenth century, and how it came to shape British, European, Imperial and American understandings of science, technology, human society and culture. Taking as its starting point the Aberdonian school of Common Sense Philosophy, it examines
- the valorisation of the democratic intellect
- the emphasis placed on practical and technological education
- the reimagining of the relationship between faith and imagination
- the historical treatment of the Bible
- the cultural context of the theory of evolution
- the racial theories underpinning imperial exploitation
- the re-narrating of history characterised as a story of atrophy and degeneration
- the radical intellectual implications of thermodynamics
In marking out as sustained period of intellectual reflection the project takes inspiration from Cairns Craig 's essay 'When was the Scottish Enlightenment? '. It brings thinkers and writers as diverse as James Clerk Maxwell, J G Frazer, Lord Kelvin, Robert Knox, George MacDonald, James Mill, Margaret Oliphant, William Rankine, William Robertson Smith, Mary Somerville, Robert Louis Stevenson and Dugald Stewart to re-narrate our understanding of the radical achievements of Scottish intellectual life in the long nineteenth century.
This project is led by Michael Brown (RIISS), Brad Bow (RIISS) and Ben Marsden (CHPSTM) and brings together an interdisciplinary group of scholars.