Edited by Ben Shimshon
Published 2005 (ISBN 1 902488 80 6) Price £9.95
Published 2005 This pamphlet comprises the transcripts of a series of lectures held as a tribute to the late Donald Dewar, Scotland’s first First Minister. Their aim was to examine some of the ideas that flourished in 18th Century Scotland in the period now known as the Scottish Enlightenment and to bring out those aspects of that period’s political and economic philosophy that still hold relevance for today’s world. Over the course of the four lectures the ideas of Adam Ferguson, Joseph Black, David Hume and Adam Smith were each discussed by an academic of distinction and by a contemporary commentator or politician. It became apparent that many of their concerns, and their approaches to them, resonate closely with present day issues such as the development of a healthy civil society, links between academia and enterprise, the balance between economic liberalisation and social fairness and the problems of moral relativity.