Alex Law, "The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process" (Routledge, 2026)

About this episode

Alex Law discusses the connections between the Scottish Enlightenment and the development of sociology, exploring themes of state formation and the civilising process.

The thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment have often been claimed for sociology. But, what does it mean to say these thinkers were sociologists, or at the very least precursors to the subject? Does it, for example, mean that intellectuals of 18th Century Scotland had the same concerns as we do today? Alternatively, does it mean we should think of sociology as an elite discipline, developed by men who were attached to power, albeit with some often critical insights? In turn, if we accept these thinkers as doing something distinct, how can this sociologically be explained? These are the questions which animate Alex Law’s The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process (Routledge, 2026). Structured around two sections, Sociology and the Scottish Enlightenment, as well as Sociology of the Scottish Enlightenment, Law sees these thinkers as thinking through what Elias would later call the civilising process. He so doing he explores how questions of state formation, violence and emerging commercial society structured their interest and how the particular position of Scotland, a stateless nation experiencing rebellion, provided the space for what he calls their…

People in this episode

Guest: Alex Law

Topics covered

• Scottish Enlightenment
• sociology
• civilising process
• state formation
• commercial society
• intellectual history

Keywords

• Scottish Enlightenment
• sociology
• civilising process
• Alex Law
• Act of Union
• intellectuals
• state formation
• commercial society

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Routledge

Books & works: The Roots of Sociology: Scottish Enlightenment and the Civilising Process

Places: Scotland

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