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
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Page 1707
... Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 17 January l763 Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published on 9 March 1776. Although David Hume thought that 'it requires too much thought' to reach a ...
... Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, 17 January l763 Adam Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published on 9 March 1776. Although David Hume thought that 'it requires too much thought' to reach a ...
Page 1708
... lectures and papers he delivered in Edinburgh in 1748-51 and developed as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics (and ... language, rhetoric, morals, jurisprudence, government, the fine arts and astronomy, subjects which, his friend and ...
... lectures and papers he delivered in Edinburgh in 1748-51 and developed as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics (and ... language, rhetoric, morals, jurisprudence, government, the fine arts and astronomy, subjects which, his friend and ...
Page 1713
... lectures had begun to attract world-wide attention and it was probably inevitable that sets of student notes would begin to turn up. So far there have been two such ... rhetoric and the lectures on jurisprudence he gave in 1762-3. Neither.
... lectures had begun to attract world-wide attention and it was probably inevitable that sets of student notes would begin to turn up. So far there have been two such ... rhetoric and the lectures on jurisprudence he gave in 1762-3. Neither.
Page 1715
... language. In the Lectures on Rhetoric he reminded his students that texts were rhetorical performances which could be studied for the light they threw on an author's methods of persuasion and on the character he wished to present to his ...
... language. In the Lectures on Rhetoric he reminded his students that texts were rhetorical performances which could be studied for the light they threw on an author's methods of persuasion and on the character he wished to present to his ...
Page 1737
... lectures on rhetoric and on jurisprudence that were to establish his intellectual credentials and to play an important part in launching his career. The groundwork for Smith's philosophical career could not have been laid down in two ...
... lectures on rhetoric and on jurisprudence that were to establish his intellectual credentials and to play an important part in launching his career. The groundwork for Smith's philosophical career could not have been laid down in two ...
Contents
1699 | |
1703 | |
1707 | |
1717 | |
1737 | |
Oxfordand David Hume | |
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