Both Adam Smith's epistemology and his politics head to a stalemate. The former is under the opposing pulls of an essentialist ideal of knowledge and of a pragmatist approach to the history of science. The latter still tries to provide a foundation for a natural law, while conceiving it as non-absolute and changeable. The consequences are (i) inability to complete both the political and the epistemological works projected by Smith; (ii) decentralization of the social order, giving rise to several partial (...) orders, such as that of the market. (shrink)

In this paper I reconstruct the birth, blossoming and decline of an eighteenth century program, namely “Moral Newtonianism”. I reconstruct the interaction, or co-existence, of different levels: positive theories, methodology, worldviews and trace the presence of scattered items of the various levels in the work of Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, Dugald Stewart. I highlight how Mirowski’s reconstruction of the interaction between physics and economics may be extended to the eighteenth century in an interesting way once the outdated reconstruction of (...) Adam Smith that has been adopted by Mirowski is updated. I show how general methodological ideas, such as the distinction between ultimate causes or essences and intermediate principles, that originated in a context where the issue was the interaction between natural science and theology, proved useful when transferred to social theory in encouraging a kind of “experimental” approach to social phenomena. I discuss finally the genesis of frozen metaphors such as equilibrium, circulation, and value, arguing that Canguilhem’s lesson – namely that scientific change is produced not only by similarity but also by opposition – may be applied also to the history of economic thought. I take as an example Adam Smith’s ‘discovery’ of social mechanisms vis-à-vis his sceptical mistrust of neo-Stoic and Platonic views of a world-order. (shrink)

La filosofía moral de Adam Smith se fundamenta en el papel de la imaginación para explicar el orden social en un nivel macro, y como mecanismo de identificación afec tiva en un nivel micro. En ambos casos, el rol de la imaginación en nuestra psicología moral refuta la tesis de un _homo economicus_, o de que el ser humano está motiva do a entrar en sociedad por su interés personal. Esto sirve de premisa para refutar la posición hobbesiana de un (...) estado de naturaleza histórico que está en la base de nuestros juicios morales que fundan la sociedad civil y la necesidad del magistrado. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that the writers of eighteenth century Scotland played a key role in shaping the early practice of social science. This paper examines how this ‘Scottish’ contribution to the Enlightenment generation of social science was shaped by the fascination with unintended consequences. From Adam Smith's invisible hand to Hume's analysis of convention, through Ferguson's sociology, and Millar's discussion of rank, by way of Robertson's View of Progress, the concept of unintended consequences pervades the writing of the period. (...) The paper argues that the idea of unintended order shapes the understanding of the purpose of theoretical social science that emerges from the Scottish Enlightenment. (shrink)

Resumen Se discute el principio de simpatía que Smith desarrolla en la primera edición de La teoría de los sentimientos morales, enfatizando en qué sentido lo considera insuficiente para lograr cohesión en la sociedad comercial. Se argumenta que Smith concibe a La riqueza de las naciones como parte de su misión por desarrollar una teoría de la jurisprudencia, y que en dicha obra enfatiza los peligros que se engendran en la sociedad comercial y las consecuentes dificultades para que esta logre (...) ser una sociedad civilizada. Se arguye que tales peligros y dificultades conducen a Smith a trabajar en el campo de la ética de la virtud, incorporando la Parte VI de la última edición de la TSM.The sympathy principle that Smith develops in the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments is discussed, emphasizing in the sense he considers it insufficient to achieve cohesion in commercial society. It is argued that Smith conceives of The Wealth of Nations as part of his mission to develop the theory of jurisprudence, and that in this work he emphasizes the dangers that are engendered in commercial society and the consequent difficulties for it to become a civilized society. It is argued that such dangers and difficulties lead Smith to work in the field of virtue ethics, incorporating Part VI of the latest edition of the TSM. (shrink)

El presente trabajo se propone mostrar los puntos de contacto existentes entre el desarrollo de la noción de simpatía en La Teoría de los Sentimientos Morales y el desarrollo de la noción de valor en La Riqueza de las Naciones. En cada una de sus dos obras, Smith elige a la noción de simpatía y a la noción de valor como principios fundamentales para la armonía de la conducta social y del sistema de intercambio mercantil, respectivamente. Pero, en ambos casos, (...) esos principios rigen solamente en sociedades pequeñas y no en la sociedad de carácter universal que asomaba ya en la época smithiana, donde el individuo moderno ya no tiene lazos de afecto con todos los miembros de la sociedad y, asimismo, desconoce los esfuerzos necesarios para producir todas las mercancías necesarias para su vida cotidiana. (shrink)

Despite an initially warm reception, over the past two centuries assessments of the literary character of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations have gradually but unmistakably turned negative. This transformation in the public reception of Smith’s text began during his lifetime and culminated in Heilbroner’s assertion that Smith wrote with ‘an encyclopedic mind, but not with the precision of an orderly one’. However, where Heilbroner and many of his predecessors saw obscurity and tedious attention to minor detail, recent scholarship has (...) begun to perceive remarkable literary subtlety and nuance. This article continues and builds upon that project. It commences with an assessment of three competing explanations of Smith’s literary style and settles on a philosophic and pedagogic explanation of The Wealth of Nations’ distinctive composition. In discerning a unique heuristic strategy and philosophic object in the text, the article places particular emphasis on Smith’s employment of syntactic complexity, stylistic juxtaposition and elliptical citation. The article concludes, somewhat ironically, with the observation that The Wealth of Nations itself succumbed to the maladies of the emerging commercial world-view, in classroom and market place, that its careful construction aimed to ameliorate. (shrink)

This article reconstructs Adam Smith’s contribution to the conversation on the nature and value of free government in the eighteenth century. Smith contributes to this conversation in two ways. First, by embedding the idea of free government in a narrative of the progress of government, which traces the interplay between natural progress and social circumstances, and culminates in the establishment of modern free government in Britain. Second, by offering a theory of the form of free government fit for modern commercial (...) states. Drawing on the “rational system of liberty” established in Britain, the Smithian model of free government is based on a “happy mixture” of republicanism and monarchism. Looking beyond the rational system, it merges the traditional concern for constitutional security against arbitrary power with a new science of policy intended to moderate the oppressive inclinations of legislators. The article contests Duncan Forbes’ reading of Smith as questioning the relation between individual liberty and free government, and brings Smith closer to Quentin Skinner’s work on the neo-Roman understanding of liberty. It suggests that Smith’s work may offer insight into some of the ways in which neo-Roman ideas were being creatively reformulated in the eighteenth century. (shrink)

La filosofía moral de Adam Smith se fundamenta en el papel de la imaginación para explicar el orden social en un nivel macro, y como mecanismo de identificación afectiva en un nivel micro. En ambos casos, el rol de la imaginación en nuestra psicología moral refuta la tesis de un homo economicus, o de que el ser humano está motivado a entrar en sociedad por su interés personal. Esto sirve de premisa para refutar la posición hobbesiana de un estado de (...) naturaleza histórico que está en la base de nuestros juicios morales que fundan la sociedad civil y la necesidad del magistrado. Adam Smith's moral philosophy is grounded in the role of the imagination in explaining the social order at a macro level and as a mechanism for affective identification at the micro level. In both cases, the role of the imagination in our moral psychology refutes the homo economicus thesis according to which human beings are motivated to enter into society due to personal interests. This premise serves to refute the Hobbesian position of a historical state of nature that underlies the moral judgments grounding civil society and the need for a magistrate. (shrink)

El propósito de este artículo es, en primer lugar, exponer el análisis que Smith desarrolla en The History of Astronomy sobre el origen de las emociones de asombro y sorpresa. En este artículo se abordará, en segundo lugar, cómo Smith relaciona las características propias de un objeto o evento que produce asombro o sorpresa en el marco de las concepciones de los salvajes con relación al uso de la expresión “la mano invisible de Júpiter”. En tercer lugar, se analizará la (...) explicación que Smith brinda sobre lo que es el “curso ordinario de las cosas”. (shrink)