This book argues that of today’s ‘core’ social scientific disciplines, it is sociology that has inherited the capacious ambitions of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Departing from the practice of classifying thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment using modern disciplinary categories that they themselves would not have recognised - categories that obscure the fact that these figures were engaged in what they considered to be a wide-ranging, historical science of society - it argues that sociology continues to explore many of the central themes in their work: historical processes, relations of power, societal differentiation and integration, morality, jurisprudence, violence, civil society and the state, as well as social divisions of class, gender, race and nation that are often overlooked in characterisations of ‘Enlightenment reason’.

A critical, qualified introduction to the precocious effort of the Scottish Enlightenment to create a theory of ‘the civilising process’, The Roots of Sociology assesses the contribution and continuing relevance of the enlightened intellectuals to sociology as an intergenerational process. As such, it will appeal to scholars and students of sociology, social theory and intellectual history.