Adam Smith’s formal legacy to posterity consisted of meticulously revised editions of his two published works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations; long-standing plans for treatises on Jurisprudence, Rhetoric, and the Fine Arts were abandoned on the grounds that there was no time to complete them. This chapter discusses Smith oeuvre as component parts of an unrealized plan to develop a Science of Man on experimental principles. Smith’s introduction to this grand projet as a student is (...) explored and the influence of Hutcheson and Hume is emphasized as is the fact that Smith developed both the published and unpublished components of his Science of Man simultaneously. The question of the meaning Smith attached to ‘science’ is a continuing theme of the chapter. (shrink)

An examination of Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres and The Theory of Moral Sentiments as complementary to one another and as refinements in earlier eighteenth-century revisions of rhetorical theory and moral philosophy. Smith’s scientific approach to language, rhetoric, and moral thinking emphasizes the improvement of the individual by exposure to stimulating works of art, literature, and spoken language, and encourages individuals to produce such works in order to provide examples to their fellows. Smith’s emphasis upon history in all (...) his works provides an example of his theory and practice of perspicuity and mutually beneficial social exchanges past and present. Smith’s recommendations to the historian, later seen as exemplary, led Dugald Stewart to refer to Smith’s histories and those of his contemporaries as speculative and conjectural vehicles for advancing the science of man. (shrink)

Preface Introduction Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith: Outline of Life, Times, and Legacy Part One: Adam Smith: Heritage and Contemporaries 1: Nicholas Phillipson: Adam Smith: A Biographer's Reflections 2: Leonidas Montes: Newtonianism and Adam Smith 3: Dennis C. Rasmussen: Adam Smith and Rousseau: Enlightenment and counter-Enlightenment 4: Christopher J. Berry: Adam Smith and Early Modern Thought Part Two: Adam Smith on Language, Art and Culture 5: Catherine Labio: Adam Smith's Aesthetics 6: James Chandler: Adam Smith as Critic 7: Michael C. (...) Amrozowicz: Adam Smith: History and Poetics 8: C. Jan Swearingen: Adam Smith on Language and Rhetoric: The Ethics of Style, Character, and Propriety Part Three: Adam Smith and Moral Philosophy 9: Christel Fricke: Adam Smith: The Sympathetic Process and the Origin and Function of Conscience 10: Duncan Kelly: Adam Smith and the Limits of Sympathy 11: Ryan Patrick Hanley: Adam Smith and Virtue 12: Eugene Heath: Adam Smith and Self-Interest Part Four: Adam Smith and Economics 13: Tony Aspromourgos: Adam Smith on Labour and Capital 14: Nerio Naldi: Adam Smith on Value and Prices 15: Hugh Rockoff: Adam Smith on Money, Banking, and the Price Level 16: Maria Pia Paganelli: Commercial Relations: from Adam Smith to Field Experiments Part Five: Adam Smith on History and Politics 17: Spiros Tegos: Adam Smith: Theorist of Corruption 18: David M. Levy & Sandra J. Peart: Adam Smith and the State: Language and Reform 19: Fabrizio Simon: Adam Smith and the Law 20: Edwin van de Haar: Adam Smith on Empire and International Relations Part Six: Adam Smith on Social Relations 21: Richard Boyd: Adam Smith, Civility, and Civil Society 22: Gavin Kennedy: Adam Smith on Religion 23: Samuel Fleischacker: Adam Smith and Equality 24: Maureen Harkin: Adam Smith and Women Part Seven; Adam Smith: Legacy and Influence 25: Spencer J. Pack: Adam Smith and Marx 26: Craig Smith: Adam Smith and the New Right 27: Tom Campbell: Adam Smith: Methods, Morals and Markets 28: Amartya Sen: The Contemporary Relevance of Adam Smith. (shrink)

This article examines Adam Smith’s views on animals, centering on the singularity of his economic perspective in the context of the general early ethical debate about animals. Particular emphasis is placed on his discussions of animals as property. The article highlights the tension between Smith’s moral sensitivity to animal suffering on the one hand, and his emphasis on the constitutive role that the utilization of animals played in the progress of civilization on the other. This tension is depicted as a (...) precursor of problematic aspects of the modern environmental crisis. (shrink)

David Hume's most brilliant and ambitious work is entitled A Treatise of Human Nature, and it, together with his other writings, has left an indelible mark on philosophical conceptions of human nature. So it is not merely the title of Hume's work that makes discussion of it an appropriate inclusion to this volume, but the fact of its sheer influence. However, its pattern of influence – including, of course, the formulations of ideas consciously antithetical Hume's own – is an immensely (...) complex one, subtle and incredibly difficult to decode. In all probability ‘Hume's’ presence in contemporary thinking of human nature is to likened to the end product of a historiographical game of Chinese whispers, whereby ‘Hume's’ view on x and y is now inflected with interpretations his work – or, more accurately, selected parts of it – that are in turn filtered by thinkers and traditions with different focuses and interest from Hume's own. I am not equipped even to begin to trace this line of influence, a lack compounded by my relative ignorance of the present state of the debate on human nature. Nevetheless various ‘humean’ doctrines still orient debate and I guess these claims include the idea that causation is a matter of instantiating a universal regularity, that normativity can understood causally, that motivation is a matter of belief plus some independently intelligibly ‘attitude’, that a self is best conceived as a collection of independent states that combine to yield a self and so on. (shrink)

This paper employs the metaphor of hunting to discuss intellectual investigation. Drawing on the example of Chrysippus’ dog, an animal whose behaviour supposedly reflects disjunctive syllogistic reasoning, the article traces the history of thought. It concludes by summarizing the contribution of Chrysippus’ dog to the fields of literature, philosophy and the visual arts. -/- .

How does the mind attribute external causes to internal sensory experiences? Adam Smith addresses this question in his little known essay ‘Of the External Senses.’ I closely examine Smith's various formulations of this problem and then argue for an interpretation of his solution: that inborn perceptual mechanisms automatically generate external attributions of internal experiences. I conclude by speculating that these mechanisms are best understood to operate by simulating tactile environments.

In both the _Treatise and the first _Enquiry, Hume offers an argument from analogy comparing how humans and animals make causal inferences. Yet in these and other texts, he suggests that there are certain differences between human and animal reasoning. This paper discusses Hume's argument from analogy, and examines how Hume can argue for differences in human and animal reasoning without having to attribute to either a special capacity that the other lacks. Hume's empiricism and his claims about sympathy also (...) give him good reason to hold that in animals just as in humans, reason is a virtue. (shrink)

Abstract This article examines the consideration of animals by various eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers, with special attention given to the physician and philosopher John Gregory, who utilized the comparison of human beings with animals as a starting point for a discussion about human moral and social improvement. In so doing Gregory, like most of his contemporary fellow Scottish philosophers, exemplified the basic anthropocentrism of the common early modern consideration of animals.

The idea that natural languages shape the way we think in different ways was popularized by Benjamin Whorf, but then fell out of favor for lack of empirical support. But now, a new wave of research has been shifting the tide back toward linguistic relativity. The recent research can be interpreted in different ways, some trivial, some implausibly radical, and some both plausible and interesting. We introduce two theses that would have important implications if true: Habitual Whorfianism and Ontological Whorfianism. (...) We argue that these offer the most promising interpretations of the emerging evidence. (shrink)

The foundation for a system of morals, this 1749 work is a landmark of moral and political thought. Its highly original theories of conscience, moral judgment, and virtue offer a reconstruction of the Enlightenment concept of social science, embracing both political economy and theories of law and government.

Hume wrote about fundamental similarities and dissimilarities between human and nonhuman animals. His work was centered on the cognitive and emotional lives of animals, rather than their moral or legal standing, but his theories have implications for issues of moral standing. The historical background of these controversies reaches to ancient philosophy and to several prominent figures in early modern philosophy. Hume develops several of the themes in this literature. His underlying method is analogical arg ument and his conclusions are generally (...) favorable regarding the abilities in animals. Hume does not attribute a moral sense or capacity of judgment to animals, but he does suggest that their actions exhibit moral qualities, such as other-regarding instincts. Hume allows in-kind differences in both demonstrative reason and moral judgment, but in the domains of both causal reason and moral agency he believes there are differences of degree rather than of kind. Hume's most significant philosophical contribution was to move as far as anyone before him to a naturalistic explanation of human and nonhuman minds that invited psychological and epistemological examination of minds by using the identical methods and categories for man and beast. (shrink)

In this brief review it is not possible to do full justice to this lively and lucidly presented study. It is fair to say, I think, that the considerable merits of this work rest primarily with its intelligent and reliable selection of material, most of which is already available and familiar. This study does not aim to challenge any orthodoxies or present new material of some significant kind. Rasmussen does not need to do this since his real concern is to (...) tell a story about two great thinkers in an engaging manner – a task which he achieves with great success. This is a book that scholars will thoroughly enjoy and appreciate and which will also find many appreciative readers well beyond these boundaries. (shrink)

The story of the greatest of all philosophical friendships—and how it influenced modern thought David Hume is widely regarded as the most important philosopher ever to write in English, but during his lifetime he was attacked as “the Great Infidel” for his skeptical religious views and deemed unfit to teach the young. In contrast, Adam Smith was a revered professor of moral philosophy, and is now often hailed as the founding father of capitalism. Remarkably, the two were best friends for (...) most of their adult lives, sharing what Dennis Rasmussen calls the greatest of all philosophical friendships. The Infidel and the Professor is the first book to tell the fascinating story of the friendship of these towering Enlightenment thinkers—and how it influenced their world-changing ideas. The book follows Hume and Smith’s relationship from their first meeting in 1749 until Hume’s death in 1776. It describes how they commented on each other’s writings, supported each other’s careers and literary ambitions, and advised each other on personal matters, most notably after Hume’s quarrel with Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Members of a vibrant intellectual scene in Enlightenment Scotland, Hume and Smith made many of the same friends, joined the same clubs, and were interested in many of the same subjects well beyond philosophy and economics—from psychology and history to politics and Britain’s conflict with the American colonies. The book reveals that Smith’s private religious views were considerably closer to Hume’s public ones than is usually believed. It also shows that Hume contributed more to economics—and Smith contributed more to philosophy—than is generally recognized. Vividly written, The Infidel and the Professor is a compelling account of a great friendship that had great consequences for modern thought. (shrink)

In his writings on non-human animals, David Hume draws comparisons between non-human animals' cognitive capacities and the cognitive capacities of humans. That Hume draws such comparisons might seem to be evidence that Hume was influenced on this issue by epistemologically skeptical thinkers such as Sextus Empiricus, Michel de Montaigne, and Pierre Bayle. This is enticing, as Hume was influenced by them on other issues and they too make comparisons between human and non-human animal reasoning. Comparing Hume's arguments in the sections (...) on animal reasoning to these skeptics' arguments shows that there is scant evidence for such an attribution of direct, positive influence on those arguments by these... (shrink)

Adam Smith was a famous economist and moral philosopher. This book treats Smith also as a systematic philosopher with a distinct epistemology, an original theory of the passions, and a surprising philosophy mind. The book argues that there is a close, moral connection between Smith's systematic thought and his policy recommendations.

This article examines the consideration of animals by various eighteenth-century Scottish philosophers, with special attention given to the physician and philosopher John Gregory, who utilized the comparison of human beings with animals as a starting point for a discussion about human moral and social improvement. In so doing Gregory, like most of his contemporary fellow Scottish philosophers, exemplified the basic anthropocentrism of the common early modern consideration of animals.

The idea that natural languages shape the way we think in different ways was popularized by Benjamin Whorf, but then fell out of favor for lack of empirical support. But now, a new wave of research has been shifting the tide back toward linguistic relativity. The recent research can be interpreted in different ways, some trivial, some implausibly radical, and some both plausible and interesting. We introduce two theses that would have important implications if true: Habitual Whorfianism and Ontological Whorfianism. (...) We argue that these offer the most promising interpretations of the emerging evidence. (shrink)

The "Notes of Dr. Smith's Rhetorick Lectures," discovered in 1958 by a University of Aberdeen professor, consists of lecture notes taken by two of Smith's students at the University of Glasgow in 1762-1763. There are thirty lectures in the collection, all on rhetoric and the different kinds or characteristics of style. The book is divided into "an examination of the several ways of communicating our thoughts by speech" and "an attention to the principles of those literary compositions which contribute to (...) persuasion or entertainment." The species of communication discussed include descriptive and narrative (or historical) composition, poetry, demonstrative oratory, panegyric, didactic or scientific language, deliberative oratory, and judicial or forensic oratory. The subjects addressed in his teachings include the style and genius of some of the best of the ancient writers and poets, especially the historians and the English classics. (shrink)

Under the pretense of defending an obscure treatise by a Catalan theologian, Sebond, Montaigne attacks the philosophers who attempt rational explanations of the universe and argues for a skeptical Christianity based squarely on faith rather than reason. The result is the _Apology for Raymond Sebond_, a classic of Counter-Reformation thought and a masterpiece of Renaissance literature. This new translation by Roger Ariew and Marjorie Grene achieves both accuracy and fluency, conveying at once the nuances of Montaigne’s arguments and his distinctive (...) literary style. (shrink)