Sociability and Newtonianism in Scotland

Abstract

The rise of universities during the Enlightenment period is quite well documented. And with respect to Scotland it has been argued that Scottish universities went under a great institutional transformation. Several chairs in mathematics and medicine were established and in the words of Paul Wood : 'These institutional changes created new pedagogical and career opportunities which were exploited by a phalanx of disciples and associates of Isaac Newton.' 1 So if it is plausibly argued by historians that Newtonianism provided a framework for all the structural changes in how scientific research should be conducted, something else must follow this: a century of organized sociability and innumerable learned societies acted as vehicles for Newton's ideas. However, a look at the earliest intellectual clubs that were established early in the century in Edinburgh poses the question of whether they actually were reactions to the institutionalization of ideas and a reaction to natural...