Finding Space for Civil Society in the Scottish Enlightenment

Abstract

Develops an argument that the Scots establish a conceptual space that becomes in later thought termed a civil society. In constructing that space they are partly reflecting some features of their own society but also intellectually they oppose three dominant strands of political thinking – rationalism, absolutism and republicanism. In their place the Scots articulate the idea of society as an interlocking set of institutions, behaviours and values that have themselves evolved. This combination of ‘sociology’ and ‘history’ allowed them to theorise about their contemporary society as distinctively ‘commercial’. In so doing they re-calibrated the place of the state and because this society was based on the interactions of socialised/ moralised free individuals, within a common established framework of law, it properly allowed a variety of institutions and value-systems to co-exist. Together these are key characteristics of civil society.