Adam Ferguson: Philosophy, Politics and Society

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Editors: Eugene Heath and Vincenzo Merolle

The Enlightenment World

In these essays, scholars analyse Ferguson’s philosophical, political and sociological writings and the discourse which they prompted between Ferguson and other important figures such as David Hume and Adam Smith.

Much secondary literature on Ferguson is discussed, which highlights how Ferguson can be best understood as a social theorist who employed elements of many strains of thought to reconcile tensions of modernity. Crucially, Ferguson’s thoughts on these far-reaching topics are difficult to classify so have often been misrepresented elsewhere. This book addresses these misconceptions.

Sample pages

• Adam Ferguson: Introduction
• Adam Ferguson: Index

Readership

Scottish Enlightenment, Eighteenth-Century Studies, History of European Thought

Contents

Part I: Eighteenth-Century Philosophy
Vincenzo Merolle, ‘Hume as Critic of Ferguson’s Civil Society: The Reasons for a Dissent’
Eric Schliesser, ‘Adam Ferguson’s Unsympathetic Response to David Hume and Adam Smith’
Jack Russell Weinstein, ‘Sympathy and Social Unity: Reading Adam Ferguson through the Eyes of Adam Smith’

Part II: Politics
Christopher Finlay, ‘Ferguson’s Political Rhetoric in the Essay on the History of Civil Society’
David Kettler, 'A Voice in a Waterfall: Adam Ferguson and Political Thought'
Michael Kugler, ‘Adam Ferguson and Enlightened Provincial Ideology in Scotland’
Patricia Nordeen, ‘Ferguson’s Interpreters: A Review’
Lisa Hill, ‘A Complicated Vision: The Political Thought of Adam Ferguson’

Part III: Society and Morals
Christopher J Berry, ‘“But art itself is natural to man”: Ferguson on intellectual and material life’
Aaron Garrett, 'Ferguson on Virtue and Stadial History'
Eugene Heath, ‘Ferguson’s Moral Thought’
James R Otteson, ‘Ferguson on Happiness and the Tragic Nature of Civil Society’

Related titles

• Adam Ferguson: History, Progress and Human Nature
• The Correspondence of Adam Ferguson
• The Manuscripts of Adam Ferguson
• Theory and Practice in the Eighteenth Century: Writing between Philosophy and Literature

Download leaflet pdfs

• Adam Ferguson leaflet pdf

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