![]() | Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment Subjects: Republicanism -- Rome -- History; Rome -- Politics and government; Great Britain -- Politics and government; Enlightenment -- Scotland; Ferguson Adam 1723–1816; Although overshadowed by his contemporaries Adam Smith and David Hume, the Scottish philosopher Adam Ferguson strongly influenced eighteenth-century currents of political thought. A major reassessment of this neglected figure, Adam Ferguson in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Roman Past and Europe's Future sheds new light on Ferguson as a serious critic, rather than an advocate, of the Enlightenment belief in liberal progress. Unlike the philosophes who looked upon Europe's growing prosperity and saw confirmation of a utopian future, Ferguson saw something else: a reminder of Rome's lesson that egalitarian democracy could become a self-undermining path to dictatorship. McDaniel Iain : Iain McDaniel is Teaching Fellow in the History of Political Thought at University College London. |
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