The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith

by Edited by Knud Haakonssen

• ISBN13: 9780521779241
• ISBN10: 0521779243
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-03-06
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

Adam Smith is best known as the founder of scientific economics and as an early proponent of the modern market economy. Political economy, however, was only one part of Smith's comprehensive intellectual system. Consisting of a theory of mind and its functions in language, arts, science, and social intercourse, Smith's system was a towering contribution to the Scottish Enlightenment. His ideas on social intercourse also served as the basis for a moral theory that provided both historical and theoretical accounts of law, politics, and economics. This Companion volume provides an examination of all aspects of Smith's thought. Collectively, the essays take into account Smith's multiple contexts - Scottish, British, European, Atlantic; biographical, institutional, political, philosophical - and they draw on all of his works, including student notes from his lectures. Pluralistic in approach, the volume provides a contextualist history of Smith, as well as direct philosophical engagement with his ideas.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors	ix
Method of Citation	xiii
Introduction: The Coherence of Smith's Thought	1	(21)
Knud Haakonssen
Imagination: Morals, Science, and Arts	22	(35)
Charles L. Griswold, Jr.
Adam Smith, Belletrist	57	(22)
Mark Salber Phillips
Adam Smith's Theory of Language	79	(33)
Marcelo Dascal
Smith and Science	112	(24)
Christopher J. Berry
Smith on Ingenuity, Pleasure, and the Imitative Arts	136	(22)
Neil De Marchi
Sympathy and the Impartial Spectator	158	(31)
Alexander Broadie
Virtues, Utility, and Rules	189	(25)
Robert Shaver
Adam Smith on Justice, Rights, and Law	214	(32)
David Lieberman
Self-Interest and Other Interests	246	(24)
Pratap Bhanu Mehta
Adam Smith and History	270	(18)
J. G. A. Pocock
Adam Smith's Politics	288	(31)
Douglas Long
Adam Smith's Economics	319	(47)
Emma Rothschild
Amartya Sen
The Legacy of Adam Smith	366	(29)
Knud Haakonssen
Donald Winch
Bibliography	395	(6)
Index	401