Sharing the humanist and rationalist outlook of the European Enlightenment of the same time period, the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment asserted the importance of human reason combined with a rejection of any authority that could not be justified by reason.
Ademais de compartir a visión humanista e racionalista da ilustración europea do mesmo período, os pensadores escoceses facían fincapé na gran importancia da razón humana combinada co rexeitamento de calquera autoridade que non estivese xustificada coa razón.