The Cambridge Companion to Adam Smith

This Companion volume provides an examination of all aspects of Smith's thought.

Knud Haakonssen (Edited by)

9780521770590, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 27 February 2006

424 pages, 1 b/w illus.
23.3 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm, 0.693 kg

“Historian Haakonssen has assembled arguably the most wide-ranging perspective yet published on the social vision of Adam Smith.” -- Choice

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.

List of contributors
Method of citation
Introduction: the coherence of Smith's thought Knud Haakonssen
1. Imagination: morals, science and arts Charles L. Griswold Jr
2. Adam Smith, Belletrist Mark Salber Phillips
3. Adam Smith's theory of language Marcelo Dascal
4. Smith and science Christopher J. Berry
5. Smith on ingenuity, pleasure and the imitative arts Neil De Marchi
6. Sympathy and the impartial spectator Alexander Broadie
7. Virtues, utility and rules Robert Shaver
8. Adam Smith on justice, rights and law David Lieberman
9. Self-interest and other interests Pratap Bhanu Mehta
10. Adam Smith and history J. G .A. Pocock
11. Adam Smith's politics Douglas Long
12. Adam Smith's economics Emma Rothschild and Amartya Sen
13. The legacy of Adam Smith Knud Haakonssen and Donald Winch
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Economic theory & philosophy [KCA], History of ideas [JFCX], Social & political philosophy [HPS], Philosophy of mind [HPM], History of Western philosophy [HPC]