From progression of manners to natural history of mankind: Scottish thinking on historical temporality

At the second half of the eighteenth century, Scottish thinkers David Hume, William Robertson,Adam Smith, Lord Kames (Henry Home), and Adam Ferguson wrote extensively on the stages ofhuman society, from its origins to civilisation. These works fashioned a typically Scottishhistoriographical genre, t...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Leme Lopes, A P
Format: Article
Status:Published version
Publication date:2011
Country:Brasil
Institution:UFOP
Repository:História da Historiografia
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.www.historiadahistoriografia.com.br:article/210
Online Access:https://www.historiadahistoriografia.com.br/revista/article/view/210
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:History of historiography
History of ideas
Scottish Enlightenment
Historia de la historiografía
Historia de las ideas
Iluminismo escocés
História da historiografia
História das idéias
Iluminismo escocês
Description
Summary:At the second half of the eighteenth century, Scottish thinkers David Hume, William Robertson,Adam Smith, Lord Kames (Henry Home), and Adam Ferguson wrote extensively on the stages ofhuman society, from its origins to civilisation. These works fashioned a typically Scottishhistoriographical genre, the ‘Natural history of mankind’. This genre, intimate of the Age ofEnlightenment in its Scottish form, divided the evolution of mankind in stages and establishedmoral values for each one. Here, my goal is to draw a summary of this historiographical trend.