Place
Edinburgh
Capital of the Scottish Enlightenment. In the middle of the eighteenth century a remarkable cluster of thinkers gathered here: Hume, Smith, and a dozen others who made Edinburgh the intellectual center of the English-speaking world.
Thinkers Connected to Edinburgh
David Hume
The most thoroughgoing skeptic in the history of philosophy. He argued that reason cannot justify itself, causation cannot be proven, and the self is a fiction.
Adam Smith
He explained how a market economy works, but he started from a question about why we feel for strangers. His two books are one argument.