The Scottish moral philosopher Adam Ferguson (1723–1816) is recognized as one of the founding fathers of sociology and social science more generally. This article examines his early ruminations on what has come to be seen as one of the most pressing methodological concerns for social science: the problem of ethnocentrism. The article explores Ferguson’s attempts to deal with this problem and his attempt to plot the relationship between empirical research, theory formation and normative moral judgement. It argues that Ferguson was (...) well aware of the danger of cultural bias and that his understanding of moral science is marked by a concern that empirical and normative judgements are freed from the danger of bias. (shrink)

ABSTRACTFor the Scottish Enlightenment thinker Adam Ferguson and many of his time, the history of the Roman Republic furnished the best case study for discussions of internal threats to a mixed system of government. These included factionalism, popular discontent, and the rise of demagogues seeking to concentrate power in their own hands. Ferguson has sometimes been interpreted as a ‘Machiavellian’ who celebrated the legacy of Rome and in particular the value of civic discord. By contrast, this article argues that he (...) is better understood as a disciple of Montesquieu, who viewed Rome as an anachronistic and dangerous ideal in the eighteenth century, the era of the civilized and commercial monarchy. The greatest fear of Ferguson was military despotism, which he believed was the likely outcome of democratic chaos produced by the levelling instincts of the ‘common’ people and demagogues prepared to harness their discontent. In such a scenario, a legitimate order in a mixed government would be turned into a faction putting the constitutional balance at risk, undermining intermediary powers, and ending liberty for all. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIf war is an inevitable condition of human nature, as David Hume suggests, then what type of societies can best protect us from defeat and conquest? For David Hume, commerce decreases the relative cost of war and promotes technological military advances as well as martial spirit. Commerce therefore makes a country militarily stronger and better equipped to protect itself against attacks than any other kind of society. Hume does not assume commerce would yield a peaceful world nor that commercial societies (...) would be militarily weak, as many contemporary scholars have argued. On the contrary, for him, military might is a beneficial consequence of commerce. (shrink)

Por más que se le conjure y se le invoque en la actualidad, el concepto de “sociedad civil” suele permanecer bastante oscuro en lo que designa, signifi ca e implica. Para disipar tal oscuridad, es preciso esclarecer la teoría que lo ha impregnado en su origen y a lo largo de su desarrollo. Con este objeto, se ofrece una breve historia de su elaboración teórica. Tras el naturalismo de Aristóteles, se revisa el convencionalismo liberal de Hobbes, Locke y Ferguson, para (...) terminar con las teorías alternativas de Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx y Gramsci. (shrink)