Genius Fan

Popular history authors Roy Porter and Arthur Herman have opposing views on whether or not there was a Scottish Enlightenment. American Arthur Herman says there was, and to back it up wrote a book called The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World. British Roy Porter says there was a British Enlightenment, maybe English. Find that in his book Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World. I’m new to history, I started reading about it in 2020-ish and ‘discovered’ the Eighteenth century in 2022, so I don’t have a huge hinterland of reading to draw upon to help me form a rock solid opinion. How does one know when one finally has the answer? How much do I have to read about the Enlightenment, Scottish and British history, before I ‘see’ the answer? It’s obviously not enough to read one book. Is it? And is there an answer…maybe the question is flawed. Maybe it’s not black and white.

Roy Porter
Recently I found a video of Porter promoting his book, filmed for C-Span’s Booktv, and near the end he responds to an audience member’s question about the Scottish Enlightenment: “It is, in a way anachronistic, though understandable, for us to make distinctions between the English Enlightenment, the Scottish Enlightenment or for that matter the Welsh or the Irish Enlightenment, because in so many ways the educated elite in that century saw itself as basically, if you like English-speaking…” He continues: “In a sense, what the Scots are trying to do is to modernise themselves ultra fast in the 18th century rather than to go in for any kind of Scottish nationalism and therefore in some ways the stress that we’ve had amongst the historians on the Scottish Enlightenment is a nostalgic call by Scottish nationalist historians to stake out some sort of Glorious past for the Scots in an era in which their own politics were crushed so it’s a kind of compensatory mechanism there.” I have to admit, though, I can’t find a sentence in which Porter says, Scotland did NOT have its own Enlightenment. He spends many words to convey the idea that it didn’t.

Arthur Herman
And then C-Span’s Booktv also carries a video of Arthur Herman speaking about his book to the St Andrew’s Society of Washington DC. He describes in his opening remarks, how he realised the relevance of the ideas, that are the foundation of the book, particularly after the attacks on the US of 11th of September 2001. “The origins of the target…of its basic institutions and the basic ideas that underlie it and support it…That set of ideas, that shape the modern world, begin in the lowlands of Scotland and in three urban centres in the eighteenth century: Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen. And they eventually spread in fact cover the globe and create the modern West.” And he adds, “The story here contained is the story of the way of the growth and development of a way of seeing and evaluating the world which we have come to rely upon ever since. And then in America particularly, that our economic, social, political and even educational institutions are really in a sense part of that development of what is in a sense the story of Eighteenth century Scotland, of the Eighteenth century enlightenment.” Herman has no doubt and is convincing in a way Porter isn’t because he’s unequivocal. Yes, certainty isn’t necessarily right, but it tends to arrive with greater clarity and that’s valuable when it comes to forming an opinion.

Follow up
30 Aug 2025 It feels like this may no longer be a debate. See You Tube video (from LearnLiberty.org): Giants of the Scottish Enlightenment Part 1 in which Prof. James Stacey Taylor clearly states there was a Scottish Enlightenment, which was highly influential on American history. Good video.

Notes
The Scottish Enlightenment: The Scots’ Invention of the Modern World, Arthur Herman (2003)
Enlightenment: Britain and the Creation of the Modern World, Roy Porter, (2001)