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 1703
... discussions which were always enjoyable, sometimes memorable, and have helped to shape my thinking more than they may have realized. It was from them that I came to learn that for many intelligent students, Smith's first book, the ...
... discussions which were always enjoyable, sometimes memorable, and have helped to shape my thinking more than they may have realized. It was from them that I came to learn that for many intelligent students, Smith's first book, the ...
Page 1726
... discussions on the science of political economy, Mr. Oswald brought his practical knowledge and experience in aid of the Doctor's theoretical deductions, and afforded him much valuable assistance in the laborious investigations in which ...
... discussions on the science of political economy, Mr. Oswald brought his practical knowledge and experience in aid of the Doctor's theoretical deductions, and afforded him much valuable assistance in the laborious investigations in which ...
Page 1731
... discussing the problems of leaming to live within it. The Enchiridion had long been regarded as a valuable ethical primer for intelligent and wellbom schoolboys. It was one of the foundation texts of Stoic ethics. Epictetus had been a ...
... discussing the problems of leaming to live within it. The Enchiridion had long been regarded as a valuable ethical primer for intelligent and wellbom schoolboys. It was one of the foundation texts of Stoic ethics. Epictetus had been a ...
Page
... discuss some of the points of his inaugural lecture with potential opponents and took the precaution of delivering ... discussing the sermons they were working on, a matter which normally lay within the province of the Professor of ...
... discuss some of the points of his inaugural lecture with potential opponents and took the precaution of delivering ... discussing the sermons they were working on, a matter which normally lay within the province of the Professor of ...
Page
... possible for the capital to develop its own distinctive form of enlightenment. Though Glasgow had its merchantintellectuals like Lord Provost Andrew Cochrane, whose Political Economy Club flourished in the 1750s and whose discussions.
... possible for the capital to develop its own distinctive form of enlightenment. Though Glasgow had its merchantintellectuals like Lord Provost Andrew Cochrane, whose Political Economy Club flourished in the 1750s and whose discussions.
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