2025/11/12 by Hiroki Ueno · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Scottish History and National Identity #Political Systems and Governance #Historical Art and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/01916599.2025.2581486
openalex publication_date 2025/11/12 · openalex created_date 2025/11/12 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/14
In eighteenth-century studies, a limited conceptual distinction between cosmopolitanism and internationalism has led to confusion. Contrary to some traditional interpretations, Enlightenment thinkers often focused on the potential of an international order as a novel vision for a more stable and peaceful world, a view distinct from the cosmopolitan perspective shared by Renaissance men of letters. This article argues that David Hume and Adam Smith, representative figures of the Scottish Enlightenment regarded by Duncan Forbes as impartial cosmopolitans, can be simultaneously situated within the camp of internationalists and interpreted as cosmopolitans as European men of letters, without contradiction. With somewhat different nuances, both were eager to establish their intellectual careers as part of the European Republic of Letters, centred in France. This suggests an alternative perspective to the Pocockean interpretation, which emphasises the British Unionist aspect of these two Scottish intellectuals. Specifically, Hume and Smith consciously cultivated a sense of belonging to the pan-European intellectual community – a cosmopolitan and Francophile identity that, by distinguishing itself from the lingering insularity of the English nation, somewhat satisfied their Scottish national identity.