Adam Smith (1723-90)

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

See posts 39 and 41-46 of the Government and the Economy; Property Rights topic in this folder.

[Feliks]

Besides 'The Wealth of Nations' this is Adam Smith's other major work: 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_The...

Here's a facile 'at-a-glance' summary of 'The Wealth of Nations'.
https://www.gradesaver.com/the-wealth...

[Feliks]

memorable quote from Part III of 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments'

Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which could befall himself would occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger to-morrow, he would not sleep to-night; but, provided he never saw them, he will snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred millions of his brethren, and the destruction of that immense multitude seems plainly an object less interesting to him, than this paltry misfortune of his own. To prevent, therefore, this paltry misfortune to himself, would a man of humanity be willing to sacrifice the lives of a hundred millions of his brethren, provided he had never seen them? Human nature startles with horror at the thought, and the world, in its greatest depravity and corruption, never produced such a villain as could be capable of entertaining it.

[Feliks]

Musing on Smith this evening. The poster-child for classical economic liberalism.

Apparently--it turns out--besides several other flaws which make Smith's grandiloquent theory of self-interest, unreliable for today--his Achilles' Heel is anthropology. He simply wrote under the assumptions of the anthropology of his era which were then in an embryonic state. Primitive men never shared the psychology of 18th century man, which Smith posited. Accumulation of private wealth was not in the ancient schema of communalism. Tribesmen didn't barter or trade with self-interest in mind. No one hoarded. Ouch! I can't even count the number of times it has been asserted (to me) that 'capitalism is part of basic human psychology'; 'it's in our nature to seek gain', etc etc etc. Nope! False. Even in the medieval era, this mindset was barely emerging. The mercantile era is what brought it about.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "his Achilles' Heel is anthropology. He simply wrote under the assumptions of the anthropology of his era which were then in an embryonic state."

Where, in Adam Smith's writings, does he refer to anthropology?

[Mike]

Feliks wrote: "Musing on Smith this evening. The poster-child for classical economic liberalism.

.... Accumulation of private wealth was not in the ancient schema of communalism. Tribesmen didn't barter or trade with self-interest in mind. No one hoarded...."

The reality of our ancestral “tribesmen” schema of communalism has evolved into spontaneous markets argued by Smith’s philosophy of an “invisible hand.” Reminiscing over such communalism and how it may work today, is similar to the scenario of the “Whale hips!” The description of those hips are in the following article:
https://www.aier.org/article/anti-mar...

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Mike wrote: "Feliks wrote: "Musing on Smith this evening. The poster-child for classical economic liberalism.

.... Accumulation of private wealth was not in the ancient schema of communalism. Tribesmen didn't..."

Regarding the linked article: Only an economics professor would take 27 paragraphs and invoke the religious authorities of Hume, Darwin, and Hayek to create a ridiculous justification for his pushing himself through a group of schoolchildren and leading them across a street against a red light. There are a lot of logical fallacies in this article. I don't have the time or energy to explicate all them, but the fallacy of false analogy is obviously right up there at the top of the list. Each norm or law must be rationally evaluated on its own merits. A pejorative analogy is not a rational argument.

[Feliks]

Alan wrote: "Where, in Adam Smith's writings..."

I don't happen to possess his book on my physical bookshelf (an 8x10 rectangular IKEA| 'shelving unit' which is always cramped for title space).

But a quick glance 'online', (Book I, Chapter II) shows him referring rather glibly to hunter-gatherers.

http://michaelatate.com/AdamSmith/b1c...

Its a site which summarizes each chapter.

"In a hunter-gather society, a man may find that he is adept at making bows and arrows, and finds he can trade these items to another hunter for meat. Soon this man realizes he can get more meat by trading bows and arrows then if he went hunting, and thus division of labor is founded out of self-interest."

Thus, Smith's sentiments seem to rest on a casual assumption grafted from his timeperiod--onto the past--which he could hardly have had any grounds for insisting upon.

I only call it out because Adam Smith is the Moses of free-market theory.

But I had to laugh (recently) however, at a free-market crony of mine who had never even heard the author name, or the book. Literally had never heard of either. So, he assigned himself a 'reminder task' in "Google Docs" to look into it...

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "'In a hunter-gather society, a man may find that he is adept at making bows and arrows, and finds he can trade these items to another hunter for meat. Soon this man realizes he can get more meat by trading bows and arrows then if he went hunting, and thus division of labor is founded out of self-interest.'"

Thanks for the reference. However, your quotation is from someone's summary, not from the actual text of The Wealth of Nations. The following is an excerpt from Book 1, Chapter 2 of Volume I of the Online Library of Liberty edition of The Wealth of Nations:

In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels in making the frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this way to his neighbours, who reward him in the same manner with cattle and with venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith or a brazier; a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus the certainty of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men’s labour as he may have occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent or genius he may possess for that particular species of business.

I don't know whether Smith was basing this on any anthropological studies. Do you? He may have just been stating what made sense to him. It is my understanding that hunter-gatherer societies were always on the move, and therefore no accumulation of private wealth was even possible. Everything changed with agriculture, when people settled down in one place. Then accumulation of land and other property became possible. However, it has been many decades since I read The Wealth of Nations, and I don't recall how Smith develops his entire argument. But it seems to me from this excerpt that Smith is describing a society that is somewhat more advanced than a hunter-gatherer band.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote (post 8): "Thus, Smith's sentiments seem to rest on a casual assumption grafted from his timeperiod--onto the past--which he could hardly have had any grounds for insisting upon."

Your operative word is "seem." This is a big assumption. Keep in mind that Smith's Wealth of Nations was not at all based on the common assumptions of his time and place. In fact, its whole point was an attack on the prevailing theory of mercantilism.

We denizens of the present and past centuries begin with the historicist assumption that every thinker is limited—conditioned—by the attitudes of his time and place. That is true of many people but not all. Smith's radical break with his contemporaries in economics—like Roger Williams's break with his contemporaries on state-church merger in the preceding century—disproves the historicist theory. Of course, the historicist proposition disproves itself because it involves a self-contradiction: see the comments in the Historicism topic.

Adam Smith may have been wrong in the last analysis, but he must be judged on what he said and not on what his later epigones said.

[Mike]

Alan wrote: "Regarding the linked article: Only an economics professor would take 27 paragraphs and invoke the religious authorities of Hume, Darwin, and Hayek to create a ridiculous justification for his pushing himself through a group of schoolchildren and leading them across a street against a red light...."

Thanks Alan for your feedback.

I admit this professor’s article was a bit elementary. However, from my daily reading, I found it interesting how he focused on the “tribesmen” term, the term Feliks used in message 4, and from that, came the “Whale hips” phrase. Not a rational argument, but a funny way to address evolution.

On the other hand, I found it interesting you tagged Hume, Darwin, and Hayek as “religious authorities.” Is that a pejorative tag, or expressing the philosophers’ genius?

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Mike wrote: "On the other hand, I found it interesting you tagged Hume, Darwin, and Hayek as “religious authorities.” Is that a pejorative tag, or expressing the philosophers’ genius?"

It was a joke that occurred to me because he was trying to enlist these great thinkers into supporting his boorish behavior.

[Feliks]

Indeed, Alan---I speak tentatively about Adam Smith because I do not have a very long association with him or his thought. I'm willing to stand correction at any time.

The summary which I quoted for convenience seems to align adequately to his text. Thanks for the amendment on that.

What were his assertions based on? Despite his methodology you call out to me--which I was not that sensitive to, and I appreciate the added context--I feel he was probably just reporting what was generally known at the time, about primitive men. I don't fault him on this, as much as I fault modern purveyors of Smith's thought, for styling his fine-sounding conclusions as being solidly buttressed when it never was.

Next: rather than ruminate upon what sources Smith might have drawn upon, (although we probably could do so) its easier to acknowledge that anthropological knowledge was simply meager in Smith's day. He would have been hampered by this no matter what his specific sources of information happened to be. Anthropology underwent vast, sweeping, sea-change between his era and the 1900s.

Towards your latter remarks: generally fair yes, but I think the extremely delicate part is assuming that agriculture alone, brought about trade and barter for the sake of self-interest. That's not what I have read and understood of it. Agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and in Europe did not bring about systems promulgating individual profits. Meanwhile, culture in Oceania (which always matched primitive culture the closest) was entirely apart from any assumptions derived from Europe or the Middle East.

'Movement' in itself is a very interesting sub-topic in all this; the point best to consider is said to be, 'how much movement'? Studies show that most nomadic bands usually traveled seasonally back and forth like winter birds. These migrations are not quite "free and unfettered movement" around an entire landmass.

Ferdinand Braudel is the authority I refer to for at least half of everything I've just stated; but I can add detail on this in a subsequent post if you'd like.

A pleasure to read your writing, as always.... in this era of 'txt'!

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "Indeed, Alan---I speak tentatively about Adam Smith because I do not have a very long association with him or his thought. I'm willing to stand correction at any time.

The summary which I quoted f..."

The point I am trying to make is that I object to facile assumptions about a great thinker based on assumptions that he/she was merely a product of his time or some such notion. I never make judgments about a writer until I have read that writer carefully (and usually repeatedly). And I never rely on secondary sources for my conclusions. The only exception to my observance of this rule may be the postmodernists, whom I have never had time to read and very likely will never have time to read. So my judgmental impressions are based on what I have briefly read about them. That's unfair, I know, and is not my preferred procedure. But at my age I am not going to take time to read them when I have so many other reading priorities.

Regarding Ferdinand Braudel (about whom I had never heard until reading your message) and your related comments, you know more about these matters than I. I am mainly relying on a Great Courses series we are watching called "Ancient Civilizations of North America", which is, by the way, quite fascinating. You are correct, however, that the Anglo-American capitalist model is not inevitable. And it is fine that you are exploring alternatives and have read more than I about such alternatives. With Randal having left this group, I am relying on you to uphold the socialist cause! (LOL.) Do I agree with it? I don't know. I plan to read more about such issues after I finish my ethics book. But I may end up undecided—just as I have been undecided about matters of economics and economic organization ever since reading John Kenneth Galbraith's The Affluent Society during the 1960s. Economics is, indeed, the "dismal science" for me. For one thing, it involves too much math for my taste. I know enough to know whom to vote for. That's all I need to know for now.

[Feliks]

Well said. We all have our individual topics of familiarity, naturally. Anthropology and history are a couple of mine; whereas science, music, health, sports, math, law, and finance are among my weakest. There's at least ten others.

But I am proud that this past year I have finally gained some competence in the history of economics and commerce.

Braudel is a modern equivalent to Gibbon, that's what a pleasure and force he is to discover. His focus is the 1500s; and he is supreme in his crafts.

I wish I could at all times adopt your stance towards not 'pigeon-holing' thinkers even for the sake of convenience...its commendable...but seems extraordinarily hard to apply! Making casual summaries of the past is how we can talk about the past at all, I should think. Even with the best intentions possible towards these giants...how could we even discuss them without any encapsulation?

I will bear in mind what you've just said though. It is the higher-road to take.

The torch of socialism passes to me? This is a heavy responsibility indeed. I must certainly watch my p's and q's if I am to follow in Randal's wake. I still hope he returns someday. We have benefited by the several fresh voices around here though to help supply the sudden gap.

Its really a vibrant group lately; and I know of none other as conscientious about proper form and (shall we say) 'mettle'.

[Robert]

This post is designed to pose a question about Smith in relation to Marx--

Here is part of the passage from Smith that Alan quotes in #9: "In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he can in this manner get more cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer."

In this passage, Smith is showing the advantages of the division of labor. In the case of this "armourer," it appears to be the case that he owns the means of production by which he makes bows and arrows. Smith doesn't stress this because it is not important, at least at this point in his analysis. The armourer's ownership of the means of production is simply implied.

For Marx, the birth of capitalism comes with the widespread separation of laborers from the means of production owned by the capitalists. The worker wakes up, goes to the factory which houses the means of production, produces all day, then goes home. Workers own only the labor power they expend in producing.

Marx's Capital contains an elaborate technical analysis of what today is sometimes called a "living wage" in campaigns that workers should get at least a "living wage." The point of Marx's analysis is that the capitalist system, left to its own devices, is interested only in the worker's labor power, so that it grants to the worker only a "living wage," that is, wages enough to buy whatever is needed to rest and relax enough to be ready to get up and be ready to provide labor power day after day.

The widespread separation of workers from the means of production comes with the industrial revolution that occurs after Smith.

My question about Smith: does he ever conceptualize in detail the separation of workers from the means of production? Does this separation ever become an important part of his analysis?

I don't recall that he does, but that may simply be a failure of my memory.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Robert wrote: "My question about Smith: does he ever conceptualize in detail the separation of workers from the means of production? Does this separation ever become an important part of his analysis?"

It's been so long since I've read Smith that I don't know the answer to your question. Perhaps someone who has read him more recently can answer it.

[Feliks]

re: #16 I believe the answer is no. Remember, the industrial revolution which began in the 1820s and which began to separate labor from production, the split which formed the basis for Marx's thought was after Smith's passing in 1790. If it hadn't, if Smith had written extensively on this; then Adam Smith might be regarded as the founder of communism instead of Karl.

You can follow the link I provided above for a convenient summary of each chapter in 'Wealth of Nations'; or take a glance too at 'Theory of Moral Sentiments' (which I doubt has bearing).

Keeping in mind though, what Alan said about 'making judgements at second-hand' you should still be able to satisfy your question. I will check as well since now I am curious about this point myself. And one inquiry may lead to others of interest.

Off-the-cuff, for the purpose of this brief message; I would state my understanding is simply that Smith touches on primitive man in one chapter --or one section-- of his book and uses it to support his overall theory of man's natural 'defense of his self-interest'. It is this upon which the free market system harkens back to; and this is Smith's theme (rather than division of labor).

Smith chiefly interests me because of the way he argues his theme; using the remote past to justify like this. It's intriguing to contemplate just how much impact this one book had when a key part of it was based on something not verifiable at the time.

Good question Robert.

[Feliks]

Whoops! I may have to revise most of what I rapped out above. Chapter I of his book does treat of division of labor.

https://www.gradesaver.com/the-wealth...

[Mike]

Feliks wrote: "re: #16 I believe the answer is.... I would state my understanding is simply that Smith touches on primitive man in one chapter --or one section-- of his book and uses it to support his overall theory of man's natural 'defense of his self-interest'. ..."

Feliks, in reference to your “defense of his self-interest” phrase, perhaps the following link may help:
https://www.ibiblio.org/ml/libri/s/Sm...

In Smith’s, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations you will find in Book IV Of Systems of political Economy in the last paragraph on the pdf page 358 (aka manuscript’s page 349) a reference to his celebrated phrase, “led by an invisible hand.”

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote (# 19): "Whoops! I may have to revise most of what I rapped out above. Chapter I of his book does treat of division of labor.

https://www.gradesaver.com/the-wealth..."

Mike wrote (#20): "In Smith’s, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations you will find in Book IV Of Systems of political Economy in the last paragraph on the pdf page 358 (aka manuscript’s page 349) a reference to his celebrated phrase, 'led by an invisible hand.'"

Yes, Feliks, let's not jump to conclusions regarding to Smith's complex argument in The Wealth of Nations without having (recently) read his work. This cannot be accomplished by reliance on what amounts to mere Cliff Notes. For some reason, my repeated point is not sinking in with you.

Like all great thinkers, Smith has been simplified and distorted not only by his opponents but also by his epigones. Long ago, Professor Joseph Cropsey (1919-2012) wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on Smith's two famous works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. A few years later, Cropsey published a book based on his dissertation: Polity and Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam Smith (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1957). Although it's also been decades since I read Cropsey's book, the following sentence in the last paragraph of it has always remained stuck in my mind: "And with cruelest irony of all, what if vulgarized science should traduce Adam Smith himself, obscuring his purposes and making his design the misconstrued object of interested approbation or ignorant calumny?" (Ibid., 100.)

For those interested in the thought of Adam Smith, I recommend, first, carefully reading Smith's two principal works and then Cropsey's book, which was reprinted in 2001 (by St. Augustine's Press) with two additional essays entitled "Adam Smith and Political Philosophy" and "The Invisible Hand: Moral and Political Considerations."

In 1968, another professor (who, like Cropsey, was not entirely unsympathetic to Smith) referred to "the invisible hand" as "Adam Smith's conjuration." It was perhaps Smith's stab at attempting to insert a metaphysical or theological notion into an economic treatise, perhaps to make it more popular. I wonder whether his best friend, that religious skeptic David Hume, would have approved. Perhaps it was "fate" that Hume died the same year (1776) that The Wealth of Nations was published. I speak, of course, ironically, not literally, about "fate." And I disagree with Hume about many things.

[Mike]

Alan wrote: "... Although it's also been decades since I read Cropsey's book, the following sentence in the last paragraph of it has always remained stuck in my mind: "And with cruelest irony of all, what if vulgarized science should traduce Adam Smith himself, obscuring his purposes and making his design the misconstrued object of interested approbation or ignorant calumny?"..."

Thank you for sharing that bit of wisdom from Cropsey! I must admit, I came across some professors that seem to fit that cruelest irony applying vulgarized science traducing those scholars of past ages obscuring their purposes and making their design the misconstrued, or realized, object of interested approbation or ignorant calumny. In other words, translation through time is a function of the evolution in knowledge.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Mike wrote: "In other words, translation through time is a function of the evolution in knowledge."

Or devolution, as the case may be. I am not one who believes in inevitable progress of human knowledge. Sure, we know more about natural science than did previous generations. I am not so sure we know more about ethical and political philosophy.

[Feliks]

re: #21 The website summary of Smith is certainly no more than Cliff's Notes; I must concede. But, we also have his actual texts on the same (or similar) sites. This serves as a basic doublecheck of his chapter contents; which Robert's question spurred.

I guess I simply shirk from the notion that we can't appraise any philosopher without a firsthand exhumation of his bibliography, carried out in true academic fashion. When we consider someone like Spencer, do we actually go back and read all of Spencer's writings to make sure we grasp every nuance? We certainly don't do that with Heidegger. Or Nietzsche. Or Burke. At some point you have to halt, and 'encapsulate'.

I've read Smith in piecemeal fashion as occasion demands; but Karl Polanyi weighs in on Smith with authority and Polanyi is the most recent voice I've read with regard to Smith; so he is freshest in my mind. I must admit that.

On the other hoof--I'm not assured at all--that if I read Smith's entire output myself, that I would have a better 'take' on Smith thanks to my having personally done so. Similarly, Immanuel Kant. His commentators do it for me rather than Kant himself does.

post #23: superb. Yes, I fully agree.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "I guess I simply shirk from the notion that we can't appraise any philosopher without a firsthand exhumation of his bibliography, carried out in true academic fashion."

I couldn't disagree more. But then I happen to have been trained by some of the greatest political philosophy professors of the twentieth century, and this is what they taught me. Plus, it's always been my instinct to study the primary sources themselves in every field. My books on Roger Williams and the Electoral College are examples of this. I am never satisfied with someone else's summary, because I find that those summaries are so often inaccurate. My book on Roger Williams, for example, is full of corrections of earlier historians in light of the primary sources. I put most of these critiques in endnotes and appendices so as to keep the book as accessible as possible to general readers.

[Feliks]

Have to diverge from you then, Alan. I think it would stifle the discourse about great ideas if the only way to discourse about past thinkers was left only to trained academics to sift through them for us. When there's a generally agreed opinion which stems from common intellectual heritage, I feel its safe to rely on it, for the sake of progress. We have our own faculties of Reason to help us tease out Truths.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "Have to diverge from you then, Alan. I think it would stifle the discourse about great ideas if the only way to discourse about past thinkers was left only to trained academics to sift through them for us. When there's a generally agreed opinion which stems from common intellectual heritage, I feel its safe to rely on it, for the sake of progress."

The "generally agreed opinion" is—as it has always been—usually wrong.

I repeat an example (one of hundreds if not thousands) I used a couple of weeks ago: The "generally agreed opinion" among the recognized academics of his time was that Galileo was wrong. How did that turn out?

[Feliks]

Rather drastic example. That was the beginning of the intellectual era.

Is it likely that a close reading of Marx would reveal him to be an ardent capitalist or imperialist? Can we categorize some things as 'given'? Can we safely assume some commonly shared precepts, or do we constantly have to start off all modern inquiry by questioning everything from square one?

The group thread on 'Translation' seems to imply that we can never really know what a thinker 400 years ago actually thought, at some point we are entirely awash in our own assumptions.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Feliks wrote: "Rather drastic example. That was the beginning of the intellectual era.

Is it likely that a close reading of Marx would reveal him to be an ardent capitalist or imperialist? Can we categorize some things as 'given'? Can we safely assume some commonly shared precepts, or do we constantly have to start off all modern inquiry by questioning everything from square one?"

Galileo is not at all a drastic or dated example. Read my book on Roger Williams, and you will see how many times contemporary scholars assume things about Roger Williams that have no basis in the primary sources and actually contradict the primary sources.

Do we constantly have to start off all inquiry (why call it "modern" inquiry?) by questioning everything from square one? Yes. See: Socrates.

That doesn't mean that we have to question, as Hume apparently did (and I may have that wrong based on my lack of in-depth knowledge of Hume), the basic laws of causation. I am not a radical skeptic. But I am a Socratic skeptic. There's a difference.

It's getting late here in the US Eastern Time Zone, and I have to get to bed. We have probably exhausted our debate on this issue. I obviously am not going to change your mind, and you aren't going to change my mind. We have stated our respective positions. There are, at this precise time, 1,885 other members of this group, and they can each make up their own minds. Additionally, we have veered off into an issue that more properly belongs in the "Reason, Logic, Evidence, and Critical Thinking" topic. I started this digression, because it arose naturally from statements made in this Adam Smith topic. But I doubt that further argument between you and me on this issue would be fruitful. We would just end up repeating ourselves.

[Christopher]

Sorry I am late to this particular debate. What you were saying reminded me of part of the preface to History of Political Philosophy, but I found I had not clipped the passage.

So I went back to the beginning of the e-book and clipped it.
(The authors are Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey- familiar names around here):


We are convinced that even the most excellent textbook could serve only a limited purpose. When a student has mastered the very best secondary account of an author’s teaching, he possesses an opinion of that teaching, a hearsay rather than knowledge of it. If the hearsay is accurate, then the student has right opinion; otherwise wrong opinion, but in neither case the knowledge that transcends opinion. We would be under the profoundest possible delusion if we saw nothing paradoxical in inculcating opinion about what is meant to transcend opinion. We do not believe that this textbook or any other can be more than a help or a guide to students who, while they read it, are at the same time emphatically directed to the original texts.

I think this distinction between 'right opinion' and 'knowledge' derives from Theaetetus.

[Feliks]

re #30; broad and fair enough to accommodate this dilemma, certainly. Glad to see you back, Donut. The point is well taken; nevertheless, it's not incautious of anyone to state that Adam Smith's writings couldn't rely on research which wouldn't start to appear until 140 after his death. He wasn't Nostradamus. :*)

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Christopher wrote (#30): "Sorry I am late to this particular debate. What you were saying reminded me of part of the preface to History of Political Philosophy, but I found I had not clipped the passage.

So I ..."

Thanks, Chris. That was the principal quote I had in the back of my mind, but I couldn't remember where I read it. It is, of course, supplemented by many other such statements and writings of Strauss, Cropsey, and others in the Straussian tradition.

Regarding the distinction between knowledge and right opinion, it may very well have been in the Theatetus (I don't recall off the top of my head), but it was also made, I believe, in the Republic, the Seventh Letter, and elsewhere in Plato. Aristotle also alludes to it in the Nicomachean Ethics. See, for example, the end of Book 1, chapter 4.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Addendum to my preceding post: Again, please refresh your screen to see the corrections I made to my original post 32.

[Zachary]

How should one approach reading the works of Adam Smith?
From what I gather, he seems to have gone off on tangents quite often in his writings, and his books are quite huge. He was a nutty professor. I wonder if a secondary source might help to guide actual readings of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Zachary wrote: "How should one approach reading the works of Adam Smith?
From what I gather, he seems to have gone off on tangents quite often in his writings, and his books are quite huge. He was a nutty professor. I wonder if a secondary source might help to guide actual readings of The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."

I would recommend Joseph Cropsey, Polity and Economy: With Further Thoughts on the Principles of Adam Smith South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2001). This was originally published as Polity and Economy: An Interpretation of the Principles of Adam Smith (The Hague: Martinus Nijoff, 1957), which I read in 1972. The 2001 edition also includes Cropsey's chapter on Adam Smith in the first edition of History of Political Philosophy, ed. Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1963); that chapter also appears in the third edition (1986) of that work, and I don't know whether the later edition made any revisions to the original chapter. The 2001 edition of Polity and Economy also includes the text of Cropsey's February 17, 1976 Harry Girvetz Memorial Lecture on the bicentennial of The Wealth of Nations at the University of California at Santa Barbara.

Polity and Economy considers both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the interrelationships between the two works. It is an outgrowth of Cropsey's Ph.D. dissertation at Columbia University.

Disclosure: I took several undergraduate and graduate courses in political philosophy from Professor Cropsey from 1966 to 1970 at the University of Chicago.

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Addendum to my preceding post:

I have now reviewed Joseph Cropsey's Polity and Economy: With Further Thoughts on the Principles of Adam Smith here.

[James W Vice Jr]

A little note of pedantry. It has been a while since I read the OED on this, but as I recall, "man" originally meant "human being". A male man was a "wegman" and a female man was a "wifman." The first gradually faded out and the latter changed into "woman." jv

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

James W Vice Jr wrote: "A little note of pedantry. It has been a while since I read the OED on this, but as I recall, "man" originally meant "human being". A male man was a "wegman" and a female man was a "wifman." The first gradually faded out and the latter changed into "woman.""

I certainly have nothing against pedantry when used in service of enlightenment! You may very well be correct. I have free access to the online OED through my membership in the American Historical Association. Looking at the entry for "man," I find so many historical references that it would take me a few hours to figure them all out. So I'll have to be content with matching pedantry with pedantry. As a University of Chicago graduate and former University of Chicago administrator, I'm sure you will accept the Chicago Manual of Style as dispositive scriptural authority in this matter. Strangely, however, CMOS Online (17th edition) is vague about this issue, though their default position appears to be that one should reword the otherwise offending language. See §§ 5:48, 252, 252, 255, 256, 257.

I realized a couple of hours after posting my review that a "male pronoun," as I called it, probably refers only to "he," "him," and "his" as distinguished from "man," which Cropsey frequently used as a synonym for "human being." In the entry for "mankind" in § 250 ("Good usage versus common usage"), CMOS states: "Consider humankind instead." During the 1970s I had a job that involved, in part, changing the language of former editions of textbooks to gender-neutral language (the more interesting part of the job was to create new textbooks and teachers' guides from scratch). Accordingly, I have been alert to these matters for several decades. In the interest of peace in our time, I avoid any possible imputation of gender bias in my writing at all costs, even though CMOS notes (§ 5:252) that "it is unacceptable to many readers . . . either to resort to nontraditional gimmicks to avoid the generic masculine (by using he/she or s/he, for example) or to use they as a kind of singular pronoun . . . ." I think it is fair to say that CMOS is, in fact, being overly pedantic and timorous in this matter. After all, Shakespeare and others coined many words in English that were new at the time but are now accepted as standard. I guess official grammarians change only at glacial speed (glacial speed before climate change, that is).

Thank you for your fascinating historical information, even though we can't turn the clock back at this late date.

[Robert]

For a comment on Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, see post #34 in the Hume discussion.

[Feliks]

I did not know Adam Smith was the pupil of this Scots philosopher, Francis Hutcheson. Makes sense.

https://iep.utm.edu/hutcheso/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis...

[Alan, Founding Moderator and Author]

Yes, both Adam Smith and David Hume were students of Francis Hutcheson, and Adam Smith and David Hume were best friends. All three held that “moral sentiment” (emotion, feeling) is determinative in ethical matters with reason being merely instrumental to the goals posited by moral sentiment. I discuss their views on this matter (with which I disagree) on pages 13–19 of my recently published book Reason and Human Ethics. These are among the pages of Chapters 1 and 2 of the book that are reproduced at https://www.academia.edu/82835731/Exc....