This opening chapter performs the customary task of introduction. A lot of ground is traversed quickly but the necessary speed is only achieved by treading lightly. In section A, I outline the general intellectual context by providing an overview of the broad movement known as the ‘Enlightenment’ while in section B I outline some salient aspects of the Scottish environment. These outlines are modest in both design and execution. They provide some information to help fill in the background to the Scots’ social theory. Of course, this provision is not neutral; any process of selection necessarily draws attention to some aspects rather than others. Nevertheless, the information is (so to speak) passive. In so far as it is possible I am avoiding the thicket of problems that are involved not only in relating social circumstances to ideas but ideas to ideas.

A: The Enlightenment

The term ‘Enlightenment’ is a convenient piece of intellectual short-hand that serves to summarise a set of ideas. Like all summaries there is room for dispute as to what is the core, and therefore has to be included, and what peripheral, and therefore excludable. It follows from this that the stability of the core cannot be taken for granted. Nevertheless, there has to be the possibility of a ‘core’, else the term itself is purely fictional - there needs to be some minimal identity. Peter Gay (1967: 4) uses the analogy of the family to this end. A family is a recognisable entity (both internally and externally), but along with its ties and bonds go squabbles and differences. The attractiveness of the analogy is that it enables the Scots to be linked to the wider movement while allowing them to be differentiated. One justified criticism of Gay's account is that it over-emphasises the French experience (cf. e.g. Ford 1968, Darnton 1971, Leith 1971). This is but another way of saying that his ‘core’ marginalises what others think to be central elements and vice versa. Certainly if the Enlightenment is too closely identified with an ‘anti-establishment’ posture then much about the Scottish branch of the family can look only distantly related.

Gay openly admits that the familial analogy is not his own but was one used by contemporaries. This itself is a good indicator of a core ingredient. The Enlightenment was a self-conscious movement.