Sociology must worry less about theoretical innovation and more about empirical description.

When Adam Smith published his celebrated writings on economics and moral philosophy he famously referred to the operation of an invisible hand. Adam Smith's Political Philosophy makes visible the invisible hand by examining its significance in Smith's political philosophy and relating it to similar concepts used by other philosophers, revealing a distinctive approach to social theory that stresses the significance of the unintended consequences of human action. This book introduces greater conceptual clarity to the discussion of the (...) invisible hand and the related concept of unintended order in the work of Smith and in political theory more generally. By examining the application of spontaneous order ideas in the work of Smith, Hume, Hayek and Popper, Adam Smith's Political Philosophy traces similarities in approach and from these builds a conceptual, composite model of an invisible hand argument. While setting out a clear model of the idea of spontaneous order the book also builds the case for using the idea of spontaneous order as an explanatory social theory, with chapters on its application in the fields of science, moral philosophy, law and government. (shrink)

A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Adam Smith (c. 1723–1790) was a White Scottish philosopher and economist. This chapter is a selection from lectures that he delivered in 1763 but did not publish in his lifetime. In the selection, Smith analyzes the master-slave relation and its economic dimensions, arguing that slavery is generally unprofitable. He also explores the origins of slavery and contends that it will never be abolished in its entirety, even though it is economically unprofitable. Smith’s economic argument against slavery was (...) enormously influential, though his claims were contested by many proponents of slavery. Smith makes similar arguments, though less detailed, in his 1776 magnum opus An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, typically referred to simply as The Wealth of Nations. (shrink)

Maynard Smith is right that one of the most striking features of contemporary biology is the ever-increasing prominence of the concept of information, along with related concepts like representation, programming, and coding. Maynard Smith is also right that this is surely a phenomenon which philosophers of science should examine closely. We should try to understand exactly what sorts of theoretical commitment are made when biological systems are described in these terms, and what connection there is between semantic descriptions (...) in biology and in other domains. (shrink)

Introduction i. Adam Smith's Lectures at Glasgow University Adam Smith was elected to the Chair of Logic at Glasgow University on 9 January, and admitted to ...

A new edition of Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, an important text in the history of moral and political thought.

A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

The Book Symposium consists of four texts. In the first, the author summarizes his book, presenting its main contribution and giving an overview of the chapters. In the second, Stéphane Marchand, after highlighting the methodological affinity between the book and his training in France, discusses the new division of the initial chapters of the Outlines of Pyrrhonism and the more robust interpretation of the notion of skeptical logos. In the third text, Casey Perin also insists on this last point. In (...) his view, Smith correctly raises a central issue in Sexto’s interpretation and draws attention to a crucial but little-studied passage. However, Smith would not have been able to explain how skepticism could be normative without dogmatism adequately. The last text is the author's response to the objections raised. (shrink)

Recently two distinct forms of rule-utilitarianism have been introduced that differ on how to measure the consequences of rules. Brad Hooker advocates fixed-rate rule-utilitarianism, while Michael Ridge advocates variable-rate rule-utilitarianism. I argue that both of these are inferior to a new proposal, optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism. According to optimum-rate rule-utilitarianism, an ideal code is the code whose optimum acceptance level is no lower than that of any alternative code. I then argue that all three forms of rule-utilitarianism fall prey to two fatal (...) problems that leave us without any viable form of rule-utilitarianism. (shrink)

Adam Smith’s fame as the ‘founder’ of economics has led to him being claimed as an inspiration by many subsequent thinkers. This chapter examines the claims of a particular group of thinkers who have identified Smith as an intellectual inspiration and forefather. The ‘New Right’ thinkers who participated in the revival of classical liberal political and economic ideas in the second part of the twentieth century have made a particular claim on Smith and this chapter takes this (...) claim seriously and explores its validity. Cutting through the rhetoric, it examines what three representative thinkers of this ‘school’, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Friedrich Hayek, actually say about Smith and what they claim to have learned from him. (shrink)

Now complete in seven titles/eight volumes, this series is the first uniform collection of Adam Smith's writings. The Glasgow edition is published in hardcover by Oxford University Press. The paperback edition is published by Liberty Fund.

Brian Sutton-Smith (1924–2015), spent his lifetime exploring the cultural significance of play, arguing that neither children nor adults are innocent in their play, and addressing play’s ambiguity and interdisciplinarity. Trained as a Primary teacher, where he wrote playful fiction for children, he travelled to the US on a Fulbright scholarship to research children’s games and toys, folklore, play, drama, film and narrative. Author of some 50 books and 350 articles including Toys and Culture (1986). The Ambiguity of Play (1997) (...) and Play for Life (2015), Brian was unquestionably the foremost play theorist of his time, changing how we see it. This conversation took place at his home in Florida in 2011. Brian was 87. (shrink)

The theory of moral sentiments.--Lectures on justice, police, revenue and arms.--An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations.

Responses and clarifications are given to the three respondents to my recent book, Why Religion Matters, in which I discuss what I see as the drawbacks and inconsistencies of Darwinism. While certain of their criticisms are understandable, others are based on a misreading of my work. Finally, my critics fail to show that my book is mistaken in its central claim that the modern loss of faith in transcendence, basic to the traditional/religious worldview, is unwarranted, because science has not been (...) able to disprove the metaphysical claim that transcendence exists. (shrink)

This volume offers an engaging portrait of Smith through over four hundred letters; also included are appendixes with Smith's thoughts on the "Contest with America" and a collection of letters from Jeremy Bentham.

This thoughtful new abridgment is enriched by the brilliant commentary which accompanies it. In it, Laurence Dickey argues that the _Wealth of Nations_ contains--and conceals--a great deal of how Smith actually thought a commercial society works. Guided by his conviction that the so-called Adam Smith Problem--the relationship between ethics and economics in Smith's thinking--is a core element in the argument of the work itself, Dickey's commentary focuses on the devices Smith uses to ground his economics in (...) broadly ethical and social categories. An unparalleled guide to an often difficult and perplexing work. (shrink)

Na Riqueza das Nações, Adam Smith notadamente observou que: “Todo homem é rico ou pobre de acordo com o grau em que ele pode se permitir desfrutar das necessidades, conveniências e divertimentos da vida humana” (WN I.v.1, 47) e que “a ordem e o bom governo” permitem que as pessoas “adquiram não apenas as necessidades, mas também as conveniências e elegâncias da vida” (WN III.iii.12, 405). Neste artigo, exploro algumas das consequências políticas dessa observação, lendo-a em conjunto com as (...) suas afirmações em Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais de que o “estado natural e comum da humanidade” (TMS I.iii.7, 45) é aquele onde a maioria dos indivíduos, na maior parte do tempo, tem acesso seguro às “necessidades da natureza” (TMS I.iii.2.1, 50). (shrink)

Teresa was a much-loved grandmother, mother, wife and a friend to the countless people who got to know her during the forty-five years she lived in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, and indeed from lon...

How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is "really" like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality , Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of one hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Intended for undergraduates and general readers with no prior background in philosophy, Theory (...) and Reality covers logical positivism the problems of induction and confirmation Karl Popper's theory of science Thomas Kuhn and "scientific revolutions" the views of Imre Lakatos, Larry Laudan, and Paul Feyerabend and challenges to the field from sociology of science, feminism, and science studies. The book then looks in more detail at some specific problems and theories, including scientific realism, the theory-ladeness of observation, scientific explanation, and Bayesianism. Finally, Godfrey-Smith defends a form of philosophical naturalism as the best way to solve the main problems in the field. Throughout the text he points out connections between philosophical debates and wider discussions about science in recent decades, such as the infamous "science wars." Examples and asides engage the beginning student a glossary of terms explains key concepts and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. However, this is a textbook that doesn't feel like a textbook because it captures the historical drama of changes in how science has been conceived over the last one hundred years. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates in language that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. (shrink)

This essay contends that the debate between subjectivism and objectivism in ethics is better understood as a dispute among three alternatives: subjectivism, objectivism, and intrinsicism. Ayn Rand has identified intrinsicism – the belief that certain things are good “in, by, and of” themselves – as the doctrine that is actually operative in many defenses of moral objectivity. What intrinsicism fails to appreciate, however, is the significant role of the subject, the person to whom and for whom anything can be valuable. (...) Objective value, in Rand's view, is relational. Its existence depends on contributions of both external reality and human consciousness. Values are not reducible to psychological states, as in subjectivism, but nor are they independent of them, as in intrinsicism. Objectivity in ethics is attained neither through revelation of the intrinsic property of goodness nor through the subject's creation of goodness, but through a rational procedure of evaluation that is governed by the method of objectivity. This essay is in three parts, explaining Rand's view of exactly what intrinsicism is; elaborating on her view of the nature of moral objectivity; and highlighting certain features that make plain the differences between an intrinsicist and an objectivist account of value. (shrink)

Gilles Deleuze was one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth-century, and Smith is widely recognized to be one of his most penetrating interpreters, as well as an important philosophical voice in his own right. Combining his most important pieces over the last fifteen years along with two new essays, this book is Smith 's definitive treatise on Deleuze. The essays are divided into four sections, which cover Deleuze's use of the history of philosophy, an overview of (...) his philosophical system, an analysis of several Deleuzian concepts, as well as an assessment of his position within contemporary philosophy. (shrink)