Adam Smith

by Nicholas Phillipson

Adam Smith (1723–90) is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas--that of the “invisible hand” of the market and that “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest” have become iconic. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist and would never have predicted that the ideas for which he is now best known were his most important. This book shows the extent to which The Wealth of Nations and Smith’s other great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, were part of a larger scheme to establish a grand “Science of Man,” one of the most ambitious projects of the European Enlightenment, which was to encompass law, history, and aesthetics as well as economics and ethics, and which was only half complete on Smith’s death in 1790.

Nick Phillipson reconstructs Smith’s intellectual ancestry and shows what Smith took from, and what he gave to, in the rapidly changing intellectual and commercial cultures of Glasgow and Edinburgh as they entered the great years of the Scottish Enlightenment. Above all he explains how far Smith’s ideas developed in dialogue with those of his closest friend, the other titan of the age, David Hume.

Genres: Biography, Economics, History, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Business

385 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 15, 2010

About the author

A specialist in the history of the Scottish Enlightenment, Nicholas Tindal Phillipson was Emeritus Reader in History and Honorary Fellow at the School of History, Classics and Archaeology at the University of Edinburgh. Phillipson studied as an undergraduate at the universities of Aberdeen and Cambridge, and completed his PhD at Cambridge in 1967. He joined the History department at Edinburgh as a Lecturer in 1965, and was subsequently promoted to Senior Lecturer and Reader, before retiring in 2004.

Reviews

[Lauren Albert · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly this was written with a specialist in mind, consciously or unconsciously. There are a lot of things that Phillipson seems to assume you know which I don’t think a regular educated (non-philosophy major) reader would know. Some examples—He mentions more than once that Smith was influenced philosophically by Euclidean geometry. Now, even though he states it influenced his method rather than his content, it still is not self-evident what that means. How could the method of geometry translate to philosophy? Then, I kept coming across the word “police,” which was clearly not being used as we use it. I assumed that it must be an archaic meaning so I checked the dictionary and did an internet search to no avail. Only after seeing this word used multiple times, does the reader get to this passage on page 173-4: ““Both versions of the lectures culminated in a discussion of ‘police,’ that self-consciously used neologism he had probably first employed in Edinburgh to consider the problems involved in maintaining what he called the ‘cleanliness’ and internal security of the state and, above all, ‘cheapness or plenty, or, which is the same thing, the most proper way of procuring wealth and abundance.” Wouldn’t it have been nice if he had put this paragraph with the first time he mentions the word?
He also assumes a cultural-historical knowledge at times, such as when he cites an exchange between Samuel Johnson and Smith: “Smith was proud of the new city centre, although it was rash to commend it to Samuel Johnson in 1773. ‘Pray, sir, have you seen Brentford?’ the surly sage replied.” I don’t know about you, but I didn’t get the joke.

This is not a bad book it was just a mismatch for me. I found it dry and difficult to follow but I don’t think someone with a stronger philosophy background would have. Be warned that it is very barely a standard biography since there is little information about Smith’s life. It is much more a biography of his intellectual life. Now, I usually like intellectual biographies but this one weighed too much on the side of ideas and not enough on the side of a life story. Given the lack of information, it might have been unavoidable.

[Karl Rove]

A really good read, this is well-written, deeply informed, and often surprising intellectual biography of the world’s first great free marketer. Phillipson argues Smith can best be understood as part of a team with his close friend David Hume that sought to create not a science of economics, but a science of man that sought to understand how man thought, spoke, understood his surroundings and sought to live his life. Seen through this prism of a quintessential Enlightenment effort, Smith’s THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS rises in importance and WEALTH OF NATIONS is revealed to be more of a philosophical treatise than an economics textbook. I strongly recommend this book: it’s brilliant, rich, and well worth it for anyone who wants to know Smith and his thinking better.

[John Crippen · Rating 3 out of 5]

After just re-reading How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness and before diving into Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments, this was a very helpful intellectual biography of Smith. Thanks to Amy W. for the recommendation!

[Carla Coelho · Rating 5 out of 5]

Um retrato detalhado da vida e obra do filósofo Adam Smith, um dos protagonistas do Iluminismo Escocês. Acompanhamos essencialmente o seu percurso intelectual e académico, sendo apresentados às suas principais ideias. Apesar de actualmente ser conhecido como o autor da obra A Riqueza das Nações, Smith escreveu, para além do mais, Uma Teoria dos Sentimento Morais, obra marcante para o pensamento europeu. Disputa com Rousseau o título de "Filósofo do sentimento". O livro traça-nos um retrato da época histórica em que viveu e desafios intelectuais e profissionais, trazendo à cena outros pensadores da época, uns com ideias próximas das de Smith e outros (como Bernard Mandeville o autor de A fábula das Abelhas) nos seus antípodas. Uma leitura interessante e que nos oferece um bom panorama de uma época intelectual de que ainda vivemos os ecos.

[Jerry Wall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wealth of Nations published in 1776, per David Hume, it requries too much thought to reach a wide audience. p. 1
Per Adam Smith. . . "but the indolence of old age, tho' I struggle violently against it, I feel coming, fast upon me, and whether I shall ever be able to finish either is extremely uncertain." He was then sixty-two and felt he had become an old man. p. 3
. . . a man, in other words, who loved correspondence for its own sake and regarded it as a form of conversation that mattered almost as much as the company of friends. p. 5
. . . coherent account of the origins of our capacity for language by invoking the power of the imagination and the love of improvement. p. 70
. . . theory of improvement [developed] p. 96
Hume . . . "everything in this world is purchased by labor and our passions are the only causes of labor". the wealth and quality of its labor force and not in terms of its gold and silver reserves. p. 141
. . . a taught animal. Pride and gullibility, fed by fashion and the never-ending hunger for social approval, had made him a slave to social convention, unrecognizable even to himself. The only consolation Mandeville had been able to offer was that most people were so gullible that they failed to understand what was happening to them. p. 142
Curiosity allures the wise; vanity the foolish; and pleasure both. p. 144
Rousseau had replied that men were naturally indolent and had only been truly at one with themselves in the savage state when they had been free to indulge their indolence by simple living. p. 148
. . . our senses will never inform us of what our bother suffers. p. 149
Even those who think they know each other will soon learn that the only access they have to each other's minds is via the perilously uncertain route of the imagination. p. 150
Smith . . . 'Man is an anxious animal.' p. 152
Do they imagine that their stomach is better, or their sleep sounder in a palace than in a cottage? The contrary has been so often observed, and, indeed, is so very obvious, though it had never been observed, that there is no body ignorant of it. p. 153
To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it (human life). p. 154
. . . dependent on the opinions of others. . . * * *. . . desist from committing fragrantly unjust acts out of fear of the social as well as the legal consequences. p. 154
. . . that sentiment, which is properly called remorse; of all the sentiments which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. p. 156 !!!!!
Rousseau once famously remarked that while men were born free, everywhere they are in chains. * * * life of virtue lived under the direction of the impartial spectator. p. 157
Theory of Moral Sentiments . . . was an essay 'on which the author himself set a high value.' p. 166
when you apply to a brewer or butcher . . . you do not address his humanity, but his self-love. p.177 !!!!!!!
It is a reminder that the Theory of Moral Sentiments, the Wealth of Nations, and indeed Smith's entire project for a modern science of man were built on the foundations of the Enlightenment's quintessential assault on religion. p. 190
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. * * * 'Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, in in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all' p. 217
Quesnay . . . agriculture was the 'mother of all good' p. 218
. . . he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. p. 230
. . . the great enlightened dictum that 'Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.' p. 233 !!!!!
An instructed and intelligent people . . . are always more decent and orderly than an ignorant and stupid one. * * * . . . dissipate . . . that melancholy and gloomy humor which is almost always the nurse of popular superstition and enthusiasm. p. 234
The Wealth of Nations is the greatest and most enduring monument to the intellectual culture of the Scottish Enlightenment. p. 137
Reading of it [the Wealth of Nations] requires so much Attention, and the Public is disposed to give so little. p. 241
Hume told Smith after losing more weight that 'I shall probably disappear altogether. p. 241
Rochefoucault . . . a Wind, though it extinguishes a Candle, blows up a fire. p. 243
he had . . . a capacity for self-abstraction. p. 260
. . . the sense of duty . . . I consider my tenure of this life as extremely precarious. . . * * * died 17 July 1790. p. 269
. . . we judge people we believe to be following an internally directed sense of morality quite differently from the way in which we judge thosASe who seem to be responding to the opinions of those around them. . . who are acting in a way which will avoid the disapproval of others. p. 270
AS shows that man's industriousness, ingenuity, and love of improvement were a response to indigence and necessity. p. 171
. . . each nation ought, not only to endeavor itself to excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbors. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy. * * * . . . like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavor to establish the est that the people can bear. p. 273
. . . the mind was, in the last resort, the Empire of the Imagination. . . . p. 280
Philosophy's roots, Smith suggested, lay in the psychological need to explain the unexpected, to soothe imagination and to restore the mind to a state of cognitive order and tranquility. p. 283

[Nolan · Rating 3 out of 5]

What surprised me the most about Adam Smith’s work was the emphasis on philosophy. This biography noted how Adam Smith was a philosopher first. Apparently Smith was much more proud of his first major work - The Theory of Moral Sentiments (which explained at length his scientific analysis of how humans behave in groups - through self regulation of their passion and reason) than his second major work The Wealth of Nations. Smith used The Theory of Moral Sentiments as the bedrock on which his subsequent major works rest. The Wealth of Nations speaks to how humans bargain to meet reasonable, mutually beneficial outcomes. If I can take my own stab at interpreting this concept - this bargaining may also be known as “market exchange” and could apply to goods, ideas, or even feelings.

[Dr. Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author has done yeoman's work here, but the fact of the matter is that some lives are more interesting than others. Smith, despite his historical contribution, seems to fall into the latter category.

[Cristofer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I must admit that I lack just too much knowledge about Adam's Smith life, and his other mayor work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, I did get the impression of understanding a little bit more about Adam Smith's life and ideas. I cannot deny that this book had a lot of research, but, at times, it seems that it may had not been enough. However, I cannot deny what was said several times during the book, Adam Smith was a very private person. The fact that he burned most of his unfinished writings just seems to confirm this fact. No author is to be blamed, and their efforts should be considered. A very notorious thing that may come to the reader's mind is the following: the book may, at times, center itself too much on other people, and even places or circumstances. This is not a bad thing. This book may give you a good idea of what the world was like for Adam Smith, and those around him, during the time of his life.

After reading this book, I'll venture to say, you'll think you know Adam Smith a little bit better, and it may even surprise you.

My mayor critique about this book is the, at times poor, chronology of events. While the chapters are made to fit the chronology of his life, the author will mention things that happened after the years in which the chapter is centered. This may not disrupt you too much, but could certainly have been improved. That said, it is not a big problem.

This book involved a lot of research, and, I am sure, it required a lot of work. This is a book I would recommend to others, however, I would also recommend you to read, at the very least, either the Theory of Moral Sentiments or, as I did, An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations. This latter is a book I wholeheartedly recommend.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though his name looms large as the founder of modern economic theory, Adam Smith himself is in many ways a mysterious and unknowable figure. Faced with the challenge of writing a biography of a man who left only a little correspondence and only two books, Nicholas Phillipson provides a broader portrait of Adam Smith's intellectual world. In doing so, he sites Smith firmly within the context of the Scottish Enlightenment, showing how he took the explorations of his teachers and colleagues (most notably his close friend David Hume) and used them to produce two of the seminal books of Western thought. By adopting this approach, Phillipson challenges the image of Smith as an absent-minded academic and turns him instead into a dynamic teacher who was in contact with many of the leading intellectual and political lights of his day. With his persuasive reinterpretation and and readable style, Phillipson has produced what is likely to be the best account of Smith's life and times for decades to come, and an essential read for anyone interested in learning about the origins and development of the ideas we still discuss today.

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have to say that not only is this one of the better biographies that I have read and one of the few books that I couldn’t put down. It is well written and obviously well researched. Though the biography itself is only 284 pages long if you ignore the notes and sources, bibliography and index I was left with the impression that I knew everything there was to know about him. Not only is the subject’s life covered but that of the times he lived in as well. As one would expect since Adam Smith had only two books published in his lifetime the circumstances involved in having them both published and at least one revised to a fifth and final edition are dealt with to some degree. I haven’t read any other biographies of Adam Smith and I don’t know if any others exist but I do believe that this may be the best available for now. It is my opinion that if this bio is the only one available you will not be disappointed. I cannot recommend it too highly. It is well worth spending the time to read.

[Dr. Tim]

A masterful and extensively researched book which acts as a great introduction to literature of the enlightenment. Some have accused the book of being overtly esoteric and thus, inaccesible to those who are not schooled in the Age of Enlightenment or general 18th century philosophy. For my part, I would propound that it is, rather than esoteric, intelligently written and, if anything, likely to inspire any reader to further investigate the morally complex, philosophically challenging and intellectually profound matters that are discussed within. Though officially a political economist by trade, the dialogue and debate that Smith puts forward, along with that of his contemporary and friend David Hume, clearly identifies him as a great thinker, moral philosopher and worthy spokesperson for the age of enlightenment. A superb read about the life and work of a genuinely admirable man.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fine, contextualizing biography. I agree with the author that Adam Smith's life and works cannot be understood except in the milieu of the Scottish Enlightenment and Epictetian stoical philosophy. Adam Smith was not promoting the intrinsic value of selfish competition, but was instead writing a prescription for enlightened rulers to mold the forces of capitalism to the greatest benefit of the largest proportion of mankind. This was a part of Smith's larger project to describe a philosophy of human interactions and manners, and to divorce Smith's works from that project for one's own sectarian ends is to willfully understand it and to cheapen the life's work of this most influential of philosophers.

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

There is not much surviving data on Smith's personal life, particularly his early life, so this author decided to focus on what is known about his environment in Scotland and those that did or may have taught him. Smith was a philosopher and educated man who also wrote a major work that is used in economics. However, there are about 200 pages that precede the Wealth of Nations section and while someone who is studying Smith would enjoy it, as a casual reader it failed to catch my attention. I think the book is well written, just not to my interests.

[The Book : An Online Review at The New Republic]

ADAM SMITH is not exactly a biographer’s dream. An intensely private man, he seemed to go out of his way to leave no trail for future chroniclers. His correspondence is dry and workmanlike, with few personal details or revealing moments. He made sure his private notes and unpublished works-in-progress were burned before his death. Having lived unmarried with his mother for most of his life, he left behind very few intimates who could relate his story for posterity.Read more...

[The American Conservative]

'It takes the literary genius of a Hume or Rousseau to make 18th-century moral psychology engaging. Equally, perhaps, it takes the scholarly flair of an Albert Hirschman or Deirdre McCloskey to make the intellectual history of moral theory absorbingly interesting. Phillipson, though amiable, is a bit pedestrian.'

Read the full review, "Das Capitalist," on our website:
http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Roger Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

Immensely researched, easily readable, and packed with information, this is the best bio of Adam Smith. Nick Phillipson spent years working on this and it shows. As you read it, you are immersed in the 18th century world and its conceptual underpinnings, classical education, social problems, and more.

[Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great guy. If only all the shallow conservatives who talk about capitalism actually understood what Smith was trying to do--then we might have capitalism instead of some sort of distorted neo-fascist oligarchy. I'd give it a five except it is not a page-turner; no, it is not.

[David]

Author interview on "Econtalk" podcast of 22 Nov 10

[Dan Walker]

Digs deeply into the philosopy of Adam Smith, his colleagues, and the world he lived in. Too much for me at the time. I did not finish the book.

[Jon Marc Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a great job of fitting Smith into the broader Enlightenment movement. Also lots of great info about Smith and Hume, their relationship, and Scotland.

[John Pugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good but a little too academic.

[Streator Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does a good job of placing Smith the context of his times but the prose is a little leaden....

[Stephen]

http://www.economist.com/node/1674041...

[Olivia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty tortuous to get through! Very academic and dry.

[Sergej van Middendorp]

Read several parts of this book to understand the context in which Smith lived for a paper on his style of writing and lecturing as compared to that of Nietzsche. Helpful.