Scotland and Naples: Two Contexts, One Enlightenment

A comparative study of Scotland and Naples from 1680 to 1760 may seem to be a narrowly specialized topic focused on two areas peripheral to the Enlightenment's main centers. For example, if one accepts Jonathan Israel's claim that the real work of the Enlightenment occurred from 1650 to 1750, then one has to say that Scotland arrived awfully late on the scene, because its real flourishing only began about 1740.¹ Worse, although Naples was more intellectually open during the 1650–1750 period, Enlightenment ideas ultimately failed to take hold and were held in check by 1800. But John Robertson uses the examples of Scotland and Naples to enter the important methodological debate about whether we assume one Enlightenment or several distinct Enlightenments. As my title indicates (borrowed from the subheading of his concluding chapter), he argues for a comparative approach to studying the Enlightenment that recognizes the claims of each side in the debate. Simply put, Robertson's case for the Enlightenment rests on analyzing not only the uniqueness of Scotland and of Naples, but also studying the important similarities in the structure of ideas between these contexts that point toward shared themes, issues, and conclusions—in short, the Enlightenment. The conclusion of his argument is easily stated, but to get to that conclusion Robertson has marshaled a meticulously detailed account of the material, intellectual, and political background involved; presented an illuminating comparative analysis of the two key thinkers—Hume and Vico; and traced the evolution of the study of political economy in each locale after 1740. The result is a persuasive, insightful study of how we can understand such a complex yet ultimately coherent phenomenon as the Enlightenment.

Robertson's position can be sketched by seeing how he locates himself with respect to several major scholars of the Enlightenment. For Peter Gay, the Enlightenment could be understood as "a family of intellectuals united by a single style of thinking."² On the surface, this position may sound like Robertson's, but Robertson will go on to insist on a common core of original thinking in the Enlightenment, not just a common style. Moreover, citing Robert Darnton's early criticism of Gay, Robertson points out that Gay, though he introduced the term "social history of ideas," he did not go deep enough into the diverse contexts of the Enlightenment to ground his history of ideas properly. French social historians, said Darnton, provide a better model because "they locate the Enlightenment by not looking for it: instead, they put aside preconceptions about the 'philosophie des lumières' and seek out the unenlightened, the everyday, and the average. Their purpose is to reconstruct literary culture as it actually was."³ But Robertson objects to Darnton's position as well, precisely because it does not look for Enlightenment, tending to become lost in the labyrinths of social history while ignoring the crucial role of the new, literate, educated public in the period.

Robertson distinguishes himself from another pair of scholars on the question of the universalism of the Enlightenment. In his wide-ranging series, Barbarism and Religion, J. G. A. Pocock, the most formidable proponent of plural Enlightenments, stakes out his position unequivocally in the introduction to the first volume:

If there is a single target of my criticism it is the concept of "The Enlightenment," as a unified phenomenon with a single history and definition, but the criticism is directed more against the article than against the noun. I have no quarrel with the concept of Enlightenment; I merely contend that it occurred in too many forms to be comprised within a single definition and history, and that we do better to think of a family of Enlightenments, displaying both family resemblances and family quarrels (some of them bitter and even bloody). To insist on bringing them all within a single formula—which excludes those it cannot be made to fit—is, I think, more the expression of one's loyalties than...