Introduction: Witherspoon in his Transatlantic Contexts

The seven articles of this special issue reevaluate Witherspoon’s legacy of transformation shortly after the 300th anniversary of his birth. It examines the dilemma of ‘two Witherspoons’ anew by comparatively interrogating continuities and discontinuities of his theological and philosophical convictions from Scottish to American contexts. Witherspoon did not develop his thought in an intellectual vacuum. He exchanged ideas with Scottish and American Enlightenment thinkers as well as engaged with established and set forth new intellectual traditions, which will feature throughout this collection of articles on Witherspoon in his transatlantic contexts.