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. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 40
Page 1717
... depended. Smith's father, Adam Smith senior, was clearly a man of some ability and ambition. Baptized in 1679, he belonged to the Presbyterian gentry of north-east Scotland. He was educated for the law at Aberdeen and Edinburgh and grew ...
... depended. Smith's father, Adam Smith senior, was clearly a man of some ability and ambition. Baptized in 1679, he belonged to the Presbyterian gentry of north-east Scotland. He was educated for the law at Aberdeen and Edinburgh and grew ...
Page 1727
... the forms of social exchange on which sociability and society depended." Smith was a pupil at the burgh school from 1731 or 1732 until 1737 at a remarkable moment in its history. The school had been transformed in 1724 as the result of the.
... the forms of social exchange on which sociability and society depended." Smith was a pupil at the burgh school from 1731 or 1732 until 1737 at a remarkable moment in its history. The school had been transformed in 1724 as the result of the.
Page 1732
... resentments that our capacity for sociability ultimately depended. And he believed that being able to feel that 'how untoward soever things might be without, all was calm and peace and concord within' was the mark of the truly.
... resentments that our capacity for sociability ultimately depended. And he believed that being able to feel that 'how untoward soever things might be without, all was calm and peace and concord within' was the mark of the truly.
Page 1735
... depended, and presented it as a skill that could be 'improved' and cultivated in the name of fostering good manners and 'politeness'. They provided him with the first rudiments of a language of sociability which suggested that in ...
... depended, and presented it as a skill that could be 'improved' and cultivated in the name of fostering good manners and 'politeness'. They provided him with the first rudiments of a language of sociability which suggested that in ...
Page
... depended entirely on its archbishopric and its university. Thereafter, for reasons which are far from clear, the southwest of Scotland became the breeding ground for a radical Presbyterianism that held strict views about sin, grace and ...
... depended entirely on its archbishopric and its university. Thereafter, for reasons which are far from clear, the southwest of Scotland became the breeding ground for a radical Presbyterianism that held strict views about sin, grace and ...
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 | |
Other editions - View all
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