Adam Smith: An Enlightened LifeThis fascinating intellectual biography of Adam Smith dramatically rewrites the economist’s life and offers new insight into his iconic concepts The great eighteenth-century British economist Adam Smith (1723–90) is celebrated as the founder of modern economics. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This biography shows the extent to which Smith's great works, The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of one of the most ambitious projects of the Euruopean Enlightenment, a grand “Science of Man" that would encompass law, history, and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics, and which was only half complete on Smith’s death in 1790.Nick Phillipson reconstructs Smith’s intellectual ancestry and shows what Smith took from, and what he gave to, in the rapidly changing intellectual and commercial cultures of Glasgow and Edinburgh as they entered the great years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Above all he explains how far Smith’s ideas developed in dialogue with those of his closest friend, the other titan of the age, David Hume. |
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... Mandeville, the author of The Fable of the Bees, first published in 1711 and reissued in 1723 in the highly publicized edition which Hutcheson must have read in Dublin, one of the most brilliant and witty philosophical satires of the ...
... Mandeville, the author of The Fable of the Bees, first published in 1711 and reissued in 1723 in the highly publicized edition which Hutcheson must have read in Dublin, one of the most brilliant and witty philosophical satires of the ...
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... Mandeville commented dryly, 'are a high Compliment to Human-kind, and capable by the help of a little Enthusiasm of Inspiring us with the most Noble Sentiments conceming the Dignity of our exalted Nature: What Pity it is that they are ...
... Mandeville commented dryly, 'are a high Compliment to Human-kind, and capable by the help of a little Enthusiasm of Inspiring us with the most Noble Sentiments conceming the Dignity of our exalted Nature: What Pity it is that they are ...
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... (Mandeville was interested in the formation of the female as well as the male personality) were driven by what Mandeville described as 'wants' or 'needs'. As he was well aware, his analysis could be used to show that all of the cultural ...
... (Mandeville was interested in the formation of the female as well as the male personality) were driven by what Mandeville described as 'wants' or 'needs'. As he was well aware, his analysis could be used to show that all of the cultural ...
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... Mandeville's refusal to believe in the existence of that feeble spark of reason which would allow the chosen and dedicated few to learn how to control their appetites. What mattered was Mandeville's demonstration that our belief in the ...
... Mandeville's refusal to believe in the existence of that feeble spark of reason which would allow the chosen and dedicated few to learn how to control their appetites. What mattered was Mandeville's demonstration that our belief in the ...
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... Mandeville had suggested, simply a matter of convention? And wouldn't it then be better to follow Mandeville in refraining from judging others and thinking of virtue as something that was too private to be left to moralists? For ...
... Mandeville had suggested, simply a matter of convention? And wouldn't it then be better to follow Mandeville in refraining from judging others and thinking of virtue as something that was too private to be left to moralists? For ...
Contents
1699 | |
1703 | |
1707 | |
1717 | |
1737 | |
4Edinburghs Early Enlightenment | |
a Conjectural History | |
9Smith and the Duke of Buccleuchin Europe 17646 | |
10London Kirkcaldy and the Making of theWealth of Nations 176676 | |
11The Wealth of Nations andSmiths Very violent attack upon the whole commercialsystem of Great Britain | |
12Humes Death | |
13Last Years in Edinburgh 177890 | |
Epilogue | |
Notes and Sources | |
Bibliography of Works Cited | |
6Professor of Moral Philosophyat Glasgow 1 17519 | |
7The Theory of Moral Sentimentsand the Civilizing Powersof Commerce | |
8Professor of Moral Philosophyat Glasgow 2 175963 | |
Index | |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith agriculture Boswell Bridgeman Art Library Buccleuch Cambridge career century citizens city’s commerce contemporary Corr culture curriculum David Hume depended develop discussion division of labour Dugald Stewart Duke économistes Edinburgh edition Epictetus Essays ethical finance find first France Francis Hutcheson friends Glasgow govemment Henry Home human nature Hume’s Humean impartial spectator important improvement influence intellectual interest James Boswell jurisprudence justice Kirkcaldy language leamed lectures on rhetoric letter liberty literary live London Lord Mandeville manufactures merchants modem Montesquieu moral philosophy Moral Sentiments ofthe Oswald Oxford passions political economy Presbyterian principles Professor progress of opulence published Pufendorf Quesnay Quesnay’s reflect Ross Rousseau Scotland Scots Scottish Enlightenment sense significant sociability society teaching Theory of Moral thinking thought Tobacco Lords town Townshend trade understanding Union virtue Wealth of Nations William writing