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 1709
... live at ease with themselves and the world around them, a theory of sociability as well as a theory of ethics, providing what was in effect an account of the moral economy of a recognizably modern civil society. The Wealth of Nations ...
... live at ease with themselves and the world around them, a theory of sociability as well as a theory of ethics, providing what was in effect an account of the moral economy of a recognizably modern civil society. The Wealth of Nations ...
Page 1726
... lives. In his early days [the author] remembers well to have heard Dr. Smith dilate, with generous and enthusiastic pleasure, on the qualities and merits of Mr. Oswald; candidly avowing, at the same time, how much information he had ...
... lives. In his early days [the author] remembers well to have heard Dr. Smith dilate, with generous and enthusiastic pleasure, on the qualities and merits of Mr. Oswald; candidly avowing, at the same time, how much information he had ...
Page 1730
... live an active social life at ease with one's self and with others. Above all, they taught young people the value of philosophy to public life and of public life to philosophy. Ethically and sociologically these were matters which were ...
... live an active social life at ease with one's self and with others. Above all, they taught young people the value of philosophy to public life and of public life to philosophy. Ethically and sociologically these were matters which were ...
Page 1731
... 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 slave and had written for those who ...
... 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 slave and had written for those who ...
Page 1732
... live rationally, at ease with himself and the world, was to attract Smith profoundly. Such men were not only happy and capable of virtue; they were also likely to be more sociable and efficient. To be sure, he found Epictetus' system ...
... live rationally, at ease with himself and the world, was to attract Smith profoundly. Such men were not only happy and capable of virtue; they were also likely to be more sociable and efficient. To be sure, he found Epictetus' system ...
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