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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Page 1699
... century), by or after John Slezer, T heatrum Scotiae (1693). (Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow) 5. Balliol College, Oxford, from D. Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata (1765). (Private collection/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library) 6 ...
... century), by or after John Slezer, T heatrum Scotiae (1693). (Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow) 5. Balliol College, Oxford, from D. Loggan, Oxonia Illustrata (1765). (Private collection/Giraudon/The Bridgeman Art Library) 6 ...
Page 1708
... century, Grotius and Pufendorf, like his two mentors Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, like d'Alembert and the encyclopédistes he greatly admired, Smith believed that it was now possible to develop a genuine Science of Man based on the ...
... century, Grotius and Pufendorf, like his two mentors Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, like d'Alembert and the encyclopédistes he greatly admired, Smith believed that it was now possible to develop a genuine Science of Man based on the ...
Page 1720
... century Kirkcaldy was bounded to the south by the long sandy beaches of the Firth of Forth, which Fleming regarded ... century it had become a town of some consequence, having acquired burgh status and the right to trade freely in ...
... century Kirkcaldy was bounded to the south by the long sandy beaches of the Firth of Forth, which Fleming regarded ... century it had become a town of some consequence, having acquired burgh status and the right to trade freely in ...
Page 1721
... century before, its position as a centre of mercantile trade had collapsed. It would be wrong, however, to think of Smith growing up in a town whose economy was in a state of terminal decline. His schooldays in the 1730s coincided with ...
... century before, its position as a centre of mercantile trade had collapsed. It would be wrong, however, to think of Smith growing up in a town whose economy was in a state of terminal decline. His schooldays in the 1730s coincided with ...
Page 1722
... century quango set up in 1727 to invest the funds the Scots had been given to compensate them for the collapse of the Darien scheme, Scotland's first and only exercise in colonization. In fact, the Board was to devote most of its time ...
... century quango set up in 1727 to invest the funds the Scots had been given to compensate them for the collapse of the Darien scheme, Scotland's first and only exercise in colonization. In fact, the Board was to devote most of its time ...
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