Adam Smith's Methodology

Imagination, Rhetoric, and Rene Descartes
1. Auflage 2026
ISBN: 978-1-041-10077-5
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 208 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Routledge Studies in the History of Economics

Most previous studies of Adam Smith’s methodology, with a few exceptions, have placed considerable emphasis on the undeniable influence of Newtonian physics and Humean empiricism.

This book argues that other sources are at least as important: Smith’s own didactic rhetoric and the methodological writings of René Descartes. Smith began his public life in 1748, lecturing on rhetoric in Edinburgh. During this time he also wrote a history of astronomy, tracing its development from the age of mythical thought to Descartes (later incorporating Newton’s ideas). In his History of Astronomy, he was less concerned with the truth value of theories than with their ability to quiet the human imagination by systematically combining numerous phenomena under a few unifying principles. In his lectures on rhetoric, he considered this approach to be the best method of didactic exposition. In both cases, he attached the greatest importance to one of the authors he cited most often between 1748 and 1763, Descartes. As such, Descartes and rhetoric were central to the young Smith’s thinking prior to the publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Consequently, any methodological examination of Smith’s published works must be framed as a question of didactic exposition seen through a Cartesian lens.

This book will appeal particularly to historians of philosophy and economic theory, as well as to scholars of Adam Smith’s life and work.

Zielgruppe

Academic and Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

López Lloret, Jorge

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftstheorie, Wirtschaftsphilosophie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction. Adam Smith and Rhetoric 2. Smith’s Connection to Descartes: Basic Evidence 3. Wonder: From Descartes to Smith Case study 1: The Invisible Hand as an Effect of Wonder 4. Imagination as the Core of Smith’s Thought Case Study 2: Instrumental Music and Philosophical Method 5. Smithian Method: Between Rhetorical Arrangement and Philosophical Methodology Case Study 3: Language as Historical Machine 6. Conclusion: Smith as Global Rhetorician Index

Über Autor(innen)

Jorge López Lloret is professor of Aesthetics and Arts Theory at the University of Seville (Spain). He is specialized in the philosophy and aesthetics of the 18th and 19th centuries, especially the French and Scottish Enlightenment. He has published articles on Adam Smith, René Descartes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, Francis Hutcheson, David Hume, Alexander von Humboldt, and Charles Darwin. He has also translated into Spanish and critically edited Smith’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres and Considerations Concerning the First Formation of Languages, from which the present investigation has emerged.