“An Invitation to All Persons:” The Dublin Society and Public Reason in Eighteenth-Century Ireland

The paper explores the activities of the Dublin Society as a form of public reason. Founded in 1731 when the Irish legislature and all trade policy was under the oversight of the British parliament, the Dublin Society undertook two roles usually under the purview of the government: economic improvement and public reason. Rawls’ definitions of public reason, with some qualifications are used. Given the nature of Irish governance, the Society transmutes the idea of public reason into the economic realm. Through its various projects, experiments, contests, schools, and publications, which all had public input, the Society develops a process whereby factual conclusions and social consensus can be made on the Irish economy. Although it did not fully escape the prejudices of its time, the Society provides a larger space than Irish political institutions for members of the public to engage in public reason as economic citizens rather than political or religious ones.