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Jacobites, Logwood and Enslavement
Read more: Jacobites, Logwood and EnslavementRethinking Scots' activities in the Early Modern Caribbean
David Hume and Scottish Philosophy
By Gordon Graham Not so very long ago, it was quite widely accepted that Britain’s most significant contribution to the development of philosophy was ‘empiricism’ and that its great exponents were the Englishman John Locke, the Irishman George Berkeley, and…
The real ‘Northern Powerhouse’? Strengthening Anglo-Scottish collaboration across the Borderlands
By Keith Shaw Tucked away towards the end of the recent document announcing the ‘Devolution Deal’ between the Treasury and the seven local councils in the North East of England, is a commitment to working in collaboration with Scotland to…
The semantic dimension of Newtonian Power
By Asher Jiang The concept of physical power in its modern forms has been introduced by Sir Isaac Newton in his great work Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Although Newton has embedded this concept into a precise mathematical framework, the power…
Descartes in Scotland and pre-Enlightenment Scottish philosophy
By Giovanni Gellera Until recently, the question ‘What was philosophy like in Scotland before the Enlightenment?’ met a standard answer reminiscent of the famous Augustinian warning to those who dared to ask what was there before the beginning of time:…
Finding offence
How are we to assess the impact of activities (e.g. words, songs or gestures) associated with sectarianism in contemporary Scotland? In the increasing absence of easily attributable effects such as crimes or disorder, or blatant forms of discrimination in the…
Community Experiences of Sectarianism
In the August 2015 issue of Scottish Affairs, a team of researchers explore the findings of a study they carried out for the Scottish government on community experiences of sectarianism. Here, one of the authors, Kay Goodall, sets out some…
The Post-Mortem of Labour Scotland
Three years ago, Gerry Hassan and I published a book entitled ‘The Strange Death of Labour Scotland’. We envisaged that, unless radical steps were taken, Labour’s influence in Scotland would steadily decline. Speaking personally, I did not envisage a total…
The Absence of God and Its Contextual Significance for Hume
In our featured article this week, “The Absence of God and Its Contextual Significance for Hume”, David Fergusson of the University of Edinburgh sets Hume’s thoroughgoing religious scepticism within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment. Much of Hume scholarship today…
“Spotlight on”…Scottish Affairs
Scottish Affairs is published quarterly in February, May, August and November of each year. Founded in 1992, it is Scotland’s longest running journal on contemporary political and social issues. Fully peer-reviewed, Scottish Affairs provides the opportunity for analysis of Scottish…