Philosophie en langue anglaise

Responsable: R. DUTHILLE

The Scottish Enlightenment. David Hume and Adam Smith on humankind, economics and politics

  In the eighteenth-century, Scotland became a “modern” society increasingly marked by the decline of feudalism, commerce and capitalism, the growth of clubs and places of sociability, with a focus on the moral and practical “improvement” of the land and its people. In this rapidly changed environment, a number of thinkers tried to apply scientific methods to the study of morals (David Hume’s empiricist approach), to make sense of social and political developments, and to analyse the foundations of morality, Hume and Smith basing moral judgments on sentiment and sympathy rather than reason or dogma.

  The movement retrospectively called “the Scottish Enlightenment” included “natural philosophers”, theologians, lawyers, technical improvers, and practitioners of the budding science of political economy. Many of those men were polymaths practicising physics, medicine, botany, zoology, theorizing law, pondering over the origins of moral judgments or the end of politics.

  This course is an introduction to the thought of the most famous representatives of the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume and Adam Smith. It does not purport to give an overview of all the topics discussed at the time, leaving out important areas like religion to focus on a manageable core reflection on anthropology (the nature of mankind, their “original” state), history in relation of economic development, and the emergence of free political institutions in the West. Within this framework, attention will be paid to the treatment of women (the social status of women being for some Scottish philosophers indicative of the degree of “civilization” attained by a given society) and race and colonialism.

The following topics will be discussed:

•  Philosophy, enlightenment and the public sphere, including the education of women through philosophical reading

•  The science of politics: the foundation of justice, the origin, role and limits of the government; non-contractarian theories of the state and based on custom, as opposed to Locke and Rousseau

•  Commerce and economics: the division of labour, the justification of economic liberalism, but also debates of commerce as a factor of civic, moral and military decadence; arguments against slavery

• History and anthropology: the “four stage theory”, stadial history, the progress of society and its consequences for colonization.

At the end of this course, students should be able to:

• Analyze key philosophical concepts in Hume and Smith
• Engage in debates on commercial society, on the role of the state
• Understand the relevance of the Scottish Enlightenment to current political debates

Methodological training includes:

• initiation to the close reading of philosophical texts

• initiation to the commentary of texts

- a midterm in-class essay;

- a final in-class essay.

Class participation, e.g. in the form of oral presentations, will be valued.

The texts will comprise extracts from key works by Hume and Smith:

• Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature. Ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
• Hume, David. Essays Moral, Political, and Literary. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1987. Especially: Of Essay Writing, The Politics May Be Reduced to a Sciece, On the First Principles of Government, On the Origin of Government, On the Rise and Progress of the Arts and Sciences.

https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hume-essays-moral-political-literary-lf-ed

The Oxford World’s Classics Edition is also valuable (editions of the essays bear different titles and offer different selections of essays).

Hume, David, Essais moraux, politiques et littéraires: et autres essais. Trad et éd. Gilles Robel. Paris: PUF, 2001 et 2024.

• Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1982.
• Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1981.

Downloadable at: http://files.libertyfund.org/files/220/0141-02_Bk.pdf (and other websites).

A full syllabus will be provided in September. The works of Hume and Smith will also be read with regard to other Scottish literati and French philosophers.