Description
Book SynopsisInspired by his lectures on rhetoric and by game theory, this book provides a new interpretation of Adam Smith’s system of thought. It highlights its coherence through the identification of three reasoning routines and a meta-reasoning routine throughout his work on languages, rhetoric, moral sentiments, self-command, and the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. The identification of these reasoning routines allows the authors to uncover a hitherto poorly understood deep structure of Smith’s work and to explain its main characteristics. How these routines emerged in Smith’s early research on the principles of the human mind is also traced.
This book sheds new light on Adam Smith and his work, highlighting his sophisticated understanding of strategic interaction in all things rhetorical, moral, and economic. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in the history of ideas, the history of economic thought, game theory, Enlightenment studies, and rhetoric.
Trade Review“This collection of essays offers an interpretation of Smith’s thought that is particularly informed by Smith’s conception of rhetoric and by game theory. It is undoubtedly the claim to show that Smith’s social science is better and more clearly understood via the vehicle of game theory that will attract attention … . it is highly commendable for its extensive documentation of, and close engagement with, much extant Smith scholarship … .” (Tony Aspromourgos, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, May 8, 2023)
Table of ContentsIntroduction.- Chapter 1: Schumpeter’s Assessment of Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations: Why He Got It Wrong.- Chapter 2: Adam Smith's Rhetorical Strategy in The Wealth of Nations, against the Commercial System of Great Britain.- Chapter 3: The Nature and Causes of Corporate Negligence, Sham Lectures, and Ecclesiastical Indolence: Adam Smith on Joint-Stock Companies, Teachers, and Preachers.- Chapter 4: Self-Command in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. A Game-Theoretic Reinterpretation_Chapter 5: A Game-theoretic Re-evaluation of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations.- Chapter 6: Adam Smith’s economics and the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres: the language of commerce.- Chapter 7: Adam Smith's Reasoning Routines, The Deep Structure of His Oeuvre, and Why It Turned out the Way It Did.- Chapter 8: Open questions.
