Scotland has played an immense role in European high culture through the centuries, and among its cultural links none have been greater than those with France. This book shows that the links with France stretch back deep into the Middle Ages, and continue without a break into the eighteenth century, the Age of Enlightenment. In one way or another all of the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment were in close relation to France, and though this book attends to the broad picture of the cultural links binding the two countries, the focus is on certain individuals, especially David Hume, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson, and certain of their French counterparts such as Montesquieu, Madame de Condorcet, Victor Cousin and Theodore Jouffroy.

Prominent among the areas under discussion are scepticism and common sense, morality and the role of sympathy, and civil society and the question of what constitutes good citizenship. The book should appeal to all with an interest in the broad sweep of Scottish cultural history and more particularly in the country's Age of Enlightenment and its links with France.

• Cover
• Title page
• Copyright page
• Dedication page
• Epigraph page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 THE NATURE OF ENLIGHTENMENT
• 2 SCOTLAND TOWARDS FRANCE PRE-1700
• 1 Richard Scotus to James Liddell
• 2 The circle of John Mair
• 3 Scotland approaches the Enlightenment
• 4 The Scottish Enlightenment in waiting
• 3 PIERRE-DANIEL HUET, HUMEAN SCEPTICISM AND ‘THE SCIENCE OF MAN’
• 1 David Hume: From Edinburgh to La Flèche
• 2 Pierre-Daniel Huet, sceptic precurser of Hume
• 3 Hume’s scepticism
• 4 David Hume: From France and back to France
• 5 Huet, Hume and scepticism in the field of religion
• 4 SCOTTISH COMMON SENSE AND THE FRENCH RESPONSE
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Common sense philosophy à la française
• 3 Thomas Reid’s career
• 4 Principles of common sense
• 5 Does the external world exist?
• 6 Théodore Jouffroy’s concept of common sense
• 7 Jouffroy on Reid and the scientific study of the mind
• 5 MORALITY AND SENTIMENT
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Adam Smith and Sophie de Grouchy
• 3 Adam Smith, sentiment, sympathy and morality
• 4 Sophie de Grouchy: an ideologue’s perspective on sympathy
• 6 CIVIL SOCIETY AND THE VIRTUES OF CITIZENSHIP
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Montesquieu: philosophe
• 3 Adam Ferguson: literatus
• 4 Montesquieu on law and republican virtue
• 5 Ferguson on law and republican virtue
• 6 Adam Ferguson’s republicanism
• 7 Adam Ferguson: magistrates and militias
• 7 CONCLUSION
• Bibliography
• Index