Last but by no means least here is an extract from Vernon’s Smith’s foreword. This book is a welcome addition to the resurgent scholarly and practical interest in Adam Smith’s contributions to market economics and its antecedents in the social order of human culture. In Smith, propriety concerned the rules that govern human sociability by…
The intro to the final chapter — by Craig Smith There was a time when many commentators thought that there was a problem with Adam Smith. The tendency to read Smith’s thought as marred by supposed tensions between the ‘sympathy’ of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) and the ‘selfishness’ of The Wealth of Nations…
The intro to Lauren Hall’s chapter. Smith scholarship is conflicted on whether the apparent conflict between self-interest in the Wealth of Nations (WN) and sympathy in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) indicates an intractable problem or is merely the result of a misunderstanding of Smith’s overall system. This chapter is written as a response both…
The intro to Jonathan Wight’s chapter. The invisible hand means a variety of things to modern writers, who use the phrase loosely to imply the market, the price system, efficiency, laissez-faire, greed is good, and so on (Samuels et. al., 2011; Medema, 2009; Rothschild, 1994). In some circles the invisible hand is referred to with…
Here is the intro to Gavin Kennedy’s chapter. This chapter discusses Adam Smith’s rhetorical use of the ‘invisible hand’ in the context of his teachings on metaphors as figures of speech in his lectures on Rhetoric (Edinburgh, 1748-51; Glasgow, 1752-64 (LRBL). After Smith died (1790), a strikingly long-period of silence about his three references to…
The intro to Eugene Heath’s chapter: Is there any reason to devote time or effort to reading (or writing) an additional essay on Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”? Given the plethora of papers (as well as chapters, comments, and asides) dedicated to uncovering, interpreting, explaining, or contextualizing this notable expression, one could be pardoned for responding…
The intro to Jack Weinstein’s chapter. In the midst of one of the most famous passages in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith writes “nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog” (WN I.ii.2). In and of itself, this is probably not a noteworthy…
The intro to Gloria Zúñiga y Postigo’s essay Is the assumption of self-interested behavior assumed in economics at odds with altruism and compassion? I believe that this question—which has been formulated in various ways in the literature for the past two centuries—is the thorn that often turns us away from reconciling the Adam Smith of the…
Here is the Twitter interview conducted earlier. Adam Smithadam smith problemEconomicsmoral philosophyPropriety and Prosperity: New Studies on the Philosophy of Adam SmithTheory of Moral SentimentsWealth of Nations
The intro to Brian Glenney’s chapter: The aim of this chapter is to propose an account of sensory perception from the known writings of Adam Smith, chiefly his juvenile work, “On the External Senses.” This account asserts that when we perceive an object we simulate its painful or pleasurable effects on our body—we imaginatively place…
manwithoutqualities 