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The publication of Bayle and the origins of Hume's philosophy

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forthcoming
Skepticism Hume Bayle

Product details

  • ISBN 9781805968306
  • Dimensions: 156 x 234mm
  • Publication Date: 15 Jul 2026
  • Publisher: Liverpool University Press
  • Publication City/Country: GB
  • Product Form: Paperback
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Description

This volume explores the intellectual, cultural, and commercial intersections between Scotland and the Netherlands during the early Enlightenment, centring on the figure of Charles Mackie (1688-1770), first professor of Universal History at the University of Edinburgh. Drawing on a rich selection of primary sources – including unpublished correspondence between Mackie and the expatriate bookseller-publisher Thomas Johnson – Jacopo Agnesina reconstructs a vibrant network of scholarly exchange and transnational book trade that shaped the Scottish Enlightenment.

The book situates Mackie within the broader “Republic of Letters”, examining his education in Holland, his ties to Dutch and Scottish booksellers, and his role in disseminating radical Enlightenment literature, especially the works of John Toland, Anthony Collins and Pierre Bayle. A detailed biographical account is given of both Mackie and Johnson, highlighting their respective careers, their collaboration in circumventing censorship and copyright laws, and their joint efforts to introduce continental thought into Scotland. Through meticulous archival research, the study sheds light on Mackie’s influence on Scottish intellectual life, his possible early connections to David Hume, and his participation in key Enlightenment institutions such as the Rankenian Club and the Edinburgh Philosophical Society. The volume includes a critical edition of twenty-one letters, primarily from Johnson to Mackie – along with related correspondence by Des Maizeaux – concerning the publication of Bayle’s Œuvres diverses.

This work offers valuable insights into early modern intellectual history, the material culture of books, and the channels through which Enlightenment ideas crossed national and linguistic boundaries.
About
Jacopo Agnesina. Ph.D. in History of Philosophy (2013). Former post-doc researcher at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, Society of Waldesians Studies (Torre Pellice, Turin) and University of Eastern Piedmont (Vercelli). AOS in Intellectual History of Enlightenment: radical enlightenment, atheism and deism, Calvinist theology, freethinking, necessitarianism, cultural transfer, radical works translations and receptions. Antony McKenna, former pupil of Christ’s Hospital (Horsham), and Brasenose College, Oxford, Emeritus Professor, Université Jean Monnet Saint-Etienne, co-director of the Dictionnaire de Port-Royal (2004) and the critical edition of the correspondence of Pierre Bayle (1999-2017, 15 vol.); author of monographs on Pascal and Molière, editor of clandestine philosophical manuscripts. Gianluca Mori is Professor of History of Philosophy at the Università del Piemonte Orientale. His research bears on early modern thought; he has published Bayle philosophe (Paris, H. Champion, 1999), Early Modern Atheism from Spinoza to d’Holbach (Liverpool University Press, 2021), Descartes: The Story of a Mind (Leiden, Brill, 2025).