Adam Smith’s Mixed Prudence and the Economy of the Public Sphere
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10380928 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Randall (0000-0001-8613-3477, New York Studio School, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 64 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 335-350 |
| Publication date | 2014-12-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Political Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0032-3217 • E-ISSN: 1467-9248 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1111/1467-9248.12180 |
| OpenAlex | W2165791357 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 34 |
Jürgen Habermas argues that Adam Smith believed that men used a calculative form of reason in the economic realm. Yet it was not calculative reason, but a variety of forms of prudence that animated Smith’s economic system. The individual exercise of prudence motivated mankind to labor, the collective exercise of prudence, expressed as supply and demand, disciplined mankind to labor where the disposition was lacking, and the combination of the individual and collective exercise of prudence allowed Smith’s economic system to establish the norm of a just price. The pervasive importance of prudence in Smithian thought implies that the economy of the public sphere should be aligned with a latter-day form of traditional prudence rather than with systematized and calculative rationality. This re-conception implies that Habermas’ democratic theory should be revised to consider free-market economic activity – and especially the process of price formation – one of those autonomous activities that comprise civil society, connect the lifeworld to democracy and require the protection of the democratic polity
Civil society · Democracy · Economic system · Economics · Epistemology · Law and economics · Market economy · Neoclassical economics · Norm (philosophy · Political science · Politics · Polity · Positive economics · Prudence · Public sphere · Rationality · Realm · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Philosophy and Ethics
Tacitus in Renaissance political thought
From Politics to Reason of State
Philosophy and the State in France
The Impartial Spectator
The Enlightenment's Fable
Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy
Communication and the Evolution of Society
Adam Smith and the Character of Virtue
Philosophy and Government 1572–1651
Das Adam Smith Problem
Habermas
Persuasion in Advertising
Between Reason and History
Adam Smith in Context
Misteri i Kapitalit
The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, Vol. 5
Rethinking Das Adam Smith Problem
Monetary Exchange as an Extra-Linguistic Social Communication Process
Adam Smith and the Classics
Gadamer's hermeneutics and social theory
The Rhetoric of the Market
Persuasion, Domination and Exchange
"Historicizing the "Adam Smith Problem
Between Facts and Norms
The Passions and the Interests
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |