Das Adam Smith Problem” and the origins of modern Smith scholarship
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11348338 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Keith Tribe (0000-0003-0726-0756, University of Sussex, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2008 |
| Volume | 34 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 514-525 |
| Publication date | 2008-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | History of European Ideas (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0191-6599 • E-ISSN: 1873-541X |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.histeuroideas.2008.02.001 |
| OpenAlex | W1995044520 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 16 |
The "Adam Smith Problem" is the name given to an argument that arose among German scholars during the second half of the nineteenth century concerning the compatibility of the conceptions of human nature advanced in, respectively, Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and his Wealth of Nations (1776). During the twentieth century these arguments were forgotten but the problem lived on, the consensus now being that there is no such incompatibility, and therefore no problem. Rather than rehearse the arguments for and against compatibility and incompatibility, this paper returns to the German writers of the 1850s–1890s and demonstrates that their engagement in this argument represents the foundation of modern Smith scholarship. It is shown that the "problem" was not simply a mistake best forgotten, but the first sustained scholarly effort to understand the importance of Smith's work, an effort that lacked any parallel in English commentary of the time. By the 1890s British writers, overwhelmingly ignorant of German commentary, assumed that there was little more to be said about Smith's work. Belated international familiarity with this German "Problem" played a major role in transforming Smith from a simple partisan of free trade into a theorist of commercial society and human action
Adam and Eve · Adam smith · Argument (complex analysis · Economics · Epistemology · German · Invisible hand · Laissez-faire · Law and economics · Mistake · Neoclassical economics · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Theology · Law · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism · Political Theory and Influence · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory
Beyond sympathy
Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy
Basic Economic Liberties
Recognition
The Desire to Consume Is the Origin of Adam Smith's Division of Labor
What Mainstream Economics Should Learn From the Ethics of Care
Covering all the [welfare] basics’
A science of concord
Rethinking the “Chicago Smith” Problem
Time for Sympathy
Schools Out
Adam Smith’s economic and ethical consideration of animals
Contextual liberalism
Hegelians Axel Honneth and Robert Williams on the Development of Human Morality
Self-Interest, prosociality, and the moral cognition of markets
From One Sympathy to Another
| Unique citing works | 16 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,94 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2026 (18) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 16 |