Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment: (Edinburgh Studies in Scottish Philosophy)

This collection of essays by Christopher J. Berry spans several decades and multiple shifts across Scottish Enlightenment, Hume and Smith studies. It brings together classic essays some of which are difficult to find with 3 new pieces, which cumulatively constitute a distinct interpretation. Clustered around the themes of sociability, the Humean science of man and the Smithian engagement with commerce and morality, these collected works will be of considerable value to those working in political philosophy, the history of ideas and the history of economic and social theory. Also included is a substantial introduction which, alongside Berry's personal intellectual history, provides a commentary on the development of the study of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. The Study of the Scottish Enlightenment: an Autobiographical Journey Part I: Scottish Enlightenment Introduction to Part I 2. James Dunbar and Ideas of Sociality and Language in Eighteenth Century Scotland 3. James Dunbar and the Enlightenment Debate on Language 4."Climate" in the Eighteenth Century: James Dunbar and the Scottish Case 5. Sociality and Socialisation 6. Rude Religion: The Psychology of Polytheism in the Scottish Enlightenment 7. ‘But art itself is Natural to Man’: Ferguson and the Principle of Simultaneity 8. Finding Space for Civil Society Part II: David Hume Introduction to Part II 9. Hume on Rationality in History and Social Life 10. Lusty Women and Loose Imagination: Hume’s Philosophical Anthropology of Chastity 11. Hume and the Customary Causes of Industry, Knowledge and Commerce 12. Hume’s Universalism: The Science of Man and the Anthropological Point of View 13. Hume and Superfluous Value (or the problem with Epictetus’ Slippers) 14. Science and Superstition: Hume and Conservatism 15. Hume on Happiness Part III: Adam Smith Introduction to Part III 16. Adam Smith’s ‘Considerations’ on Language 17. Smith and Science 18. Adam Smith: Commerce, Liberty and Modernity 19. Adam Smith and the Virtues of a Modern Economy 20. Adam Smith’s Science of Human Nature 21. Adam Smith on Liberty ‘in our present sense of the word’

About the Author :
Chris Berry is Professor Emeritus of Political Theory at the University of Glasgow, which he joined from 1970, from the LSE where he completed his doctorate. He is best known for his work on the Scottish Enlightenment and on the ‘Idea of Luxury’ and he has given invited keynote lectures on these themes in China, Japan, Chile, the US and in Europe. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh.

Review :
Chris Berry’s hybrid conceptual inquiries into the political theory of the Scottish Enlightenment are utterly distinctive. Though skeptical of a distinctive ‘Berry-view’, nobody else writes about these topics as he has done for a generation, and reading these essays newly arranged together gives a singularly enlightening sense of both his intellectual evolution and the transformation of his field of study since the 1960s. Christopher Berry's Essays on Hume, Smith, and the Scottish Enlightenment is more than its title promises. Yes, it is a collection of essays on David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Scottish Enlightenment, but it is also a remarkably coherent picture of both an intellectual period and of a professor of political theory, as Christopher Berry likes to think of himself, and the intellectual context in which he wrote. … One of the many remarkable features of the volume is that there is such a continuity and a smooth transition from one chapter to another that it took me a while to realize that the essays are not rewritten or adapted to this volume. … This volume is indeed an example of how the whole is more than the sum of its parts, since, as a whole, it does offer a bigger picture, a broader perspective on the big ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment, and even if these ideas are present in each individual essay, they are magnified each time by their proximity to each other, allowing them to blossom together with greater intensity and vivacity. Christopher Berry’s Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment delivers a ‘big idea’ on what Scottish enlightenment thinkers collectively sought to achieve. This collection of essays will certainly interest specialists in the field and is highly recommended as a key teaching source for postgraduate seminars on the Scottish enlightenment. Christopher Berry’s Essays on Hume, Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment delivers a ‘big idea’ on what Scottish enlightenment thinkers collectively sought to achieve. This collection of essays will certainly interest specialists in the field and is highly recommended as a key teaching source for postgraduate seminars on the Scottish enlightenment. With unfailing clarity, Berry helps to illuminate and untangle many issues that have often been obscured, rather than clarified, by existing scholarly treatments. For over 40 years, Christopher J. Berry has been one of the most insightful commentators on the political and moral thought of the Scottish Enlightenment. It is thus, as David Hume would put it, both useful and agreeable to have many of Berry’s previously published papers collected here, alongside several lectures and earlier working papers appearing in print for the first time … With unfailing clarity, Berry helps to illuminate and untangle many issues that have often been obscured, rather than clarified, by existing scholarly treatments.