Article ID: CBB895379293

William Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) and the Study of Religion in Enlightenment England (2018)

unapi

This study argues that the English-born, Edinburgh-educated and Bath-based physician William Falconer (1744–1824) authored the only stadial history published during the British Enlightenment that analysed the influence of socio-economic context upon religious belief. A survey of the conjectural histories of religion written by the leading literati demonstrates that discussion of religion by the Scottish literati was undertaken separate from the “Scottish narrative” of stadial economic and political progress. We have to turn to Falconer’s Remarks on the Influence of Climate (1781) to see a four-stage history of religion that related belief and practice to wider social and economic developments. While heavily derivative of Montesquieu’s De l’Esprit des Lois (1748), Falconer’s Remarks has some claim to theoretical innovation and used his conjectural history to tell a story of English (not British) religious exceptionalism. Moreover, the work was received as a serious contribution to the late Enlightenment’s science of human nature and society.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB895379293/

Similar Citations

Book Jonsson, Fredrik Albritton; (2013)
Enlightenment's Frontier: The Scottish Highlands and the Origins of Environmentalism (/isis/citation/CBB001420318/)

Chapter Porter, Roy; (2003)
The Environment and the Enlightenment: The English Experience (/isis/citation/CBB000670928/)

Book Kelly, Jason M.; (2009)
The Society of Dilettanti: Archaeology and Identity in the British Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB001231389/)

Book Bensaude-Vincent, Bernadette; Blondel, Christine; (2008)
Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB000850395/)

Book Nadine Weidman; (2021)
Killer Instinct: The Popular Science of Human Nature in Twentieth-Century America (/isis/citation/CBB223877625/)

Book James A. Harris; (2019)
Hume: An Intellectual Biography (/isis/citation/CBB460332792/)

Book Jared Farmer; (2022)
Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees (/isis/citation/CBB057151563/)

Book Carhart, Michael C.; (2007)
The Science of Culture in Enlightenment Germany (/isis/citation/CBB000950729/)

Article Alexander Cook; Ned Curthoys; (2013)
Introduction (/isis/citation/CBB948183405/)

Thesis Hume, Brad D.; (2000)
The naturalization of humanity in America, 1776--1861 (/isis/citation/CBB001560502/)

Chapter Garrett, Aaron; (2003)
Anthropology: The “Original” of Human Nature (/isis/citation/CBB000471405/)

Book Monod, Paul Kléber; (2013)
Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment (/isis/citation/CBB001213599/)

Article Gray, Sally Hatch; (2012)
Kant's Race Theory, Forster's Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color (/isis/citation/CBB001201887/)

Authors & Contributors
Curthoys, Ned
Burson, Jeffrey D.
Sagal, Anna Katerina
Lynn Festa
Farmer, Jared
Weidman, Nadine M.
Concepts
Definition of human; human nature
Nature and its relationship to culture; human-nature relationships
Science and society
Philosophy and religion
Philosophy
Anthropology
Time Periods
18th century
Enlightenment
19th century
17th century
Modern
20th century
Places
England
Scotland
Germany
United States
France
Europe
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment