Abstract

This chapter reflects on the historiographical challenge posed by the subject matter of this volume. There is the contentious question of whether there came into being in the eighteenth century a distinctively ‘Scottish’ philosophy that merits being gathered together into a ‘Scottish school’. There is the equally contentious question of what Enlightenment means in the eighteenth-century Scottish context, along with the related question of when, exactly, the Enlightenment in Scotland can be said to have begun and ended. The chapter considers the debates generated by these questions and suggests that readers should be aware that all writing on the Scottish Enlightenment, whether explicitly or implicitly, assumes answers to these questions. As with any area of history, it is always a matter of choice for the historian of the Scottish Enlightenment, how to conceive of the object of study, and what historical method to follow.