Hume e o Iluminismo Escocês: Duas Culturas

Abstract

David Hume’s philosophy and economics are central to any account ofthe Scottish Enlightenment. It is now well-established that this enlightenment ischaracterised by a particular epistemological approach which distinguishes it fromother, particularly rationalist, enlightenments. While a variety of explanations hasbeen offered for this distinctive approach, little attention has been paid to the presencein Scotland of two quite different cultures: Highland (specifi cally, Gaelic) andLowland. Most Enlightenment fi gures were, like Hume, lowland (the main exceptionbeing Ferguson). But it seems implausible that the proximity to a very different culturehad no impact on enlightenment thought. Hume himself addressed issues ofGaelic culture in terms of the controversial Ossian poems, for example, and issuesof economic development of the Highlands. The purpose of this paper is to conductan initial exploration into how far it is possible to identify any Gaelic infl uences onHume in particular, and Scottish Enlightenment thought in general. This requiresin turn a characterisation of Gaelic epistemology, for which purpose we will drawon Foucault’s structuring of thought into epistemes. If we can understand Highlandand Lowland thought in terms of different epistemes, then some further refl ectionis required on Foucault’s framework of sequential epistemes.