My research has so far focused on Scotland and been aimed at better integrating natural philosophy into the history of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy. Typically, Enlightenment thought is seen to advance a secularising, reformist agenda aimed at improving the material and moral condition of society through the exercise of reason and the rejection of received intellectual authority. If considered at all relevant to this endeavour, science is viewed as an outside influence, not integral to the Enlightenment per se. My work attempts to show that the eighteenth century witnessed major conceptual innovation in natural inquiry that was integral to Enlightenment philosophy.

Through my doctoral research into Isaac Newton's reception in Scotland (read my dissertation), I investigated how Newton's example functioned in a range of debates that cut across several fields of inquiry. While Newton’s ideas are often treated as a static scientific ideal that inspired Enlightenment philosophers, I argue that Newton's example catalysed crucial debates centred around physical explanation that had important consequences for a range of concerns characteristic of Scottish Enlightenment philosophy, such as moral philosophy (ethics), the science of the mind (psychology), and historiography. I have developed a new understanding of ‘Newtonianism’ as a dynamic set of responses to Newton’s philosophy primarily regarding causation and method.

Central aspects of Newton’s philosophy were subject to varying interpretations that offer valuable insight into how natural philosophy was conceived from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. I have found that ‘Newtonian natural philosophy’ underwent significant transformation in Scotland, largely in response to new ideas about the relationship of God to nature and new theories of how the mind works, which I think helps us better understand how the ‘modern science’ of the nineteenth century came about. I have also sought to counter the widespread misconception of Newton’s Scottish admirers as partisan followers by foregrounding their ideas and revealing how they frequently disagreed about Newton and always engaged critically with Newton’s writings and example.

View my publications on ORCID