1723-1790 Dr Adam Smith
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was the great Scottish philosopher and economist who is best known for his book The Wealth of Nations. (Web masters note- I have been unable to gather evidence that he was a mason).
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was the great Scottish philosopher and economist who is best known for his book The Wealth of Nations.
Raised by his widowed mother in Kirkcaldy, Smith won scholarships to Glasgow University and then Balliol College, Oxford. Returning to Glasgow, he was appointed Professor of Logic (1751), then Professor of Moral Philosophy (1752) and lectured on natural theology, ethics, jurisprudence and economics.
At the age of 36 he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a groundbreaking work on moral philosophy. His abilities caught the eye of the Duke of Buccleuch, who engaged him as Tutor to his son on the Grand Tour of Europe, where Smith met other eminent thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Franklin.
Smith retired back to Kirkcaldy to write An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776.
Adam Smith's major works
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Smith asks that most fundamental question: Why do we regard certain actions or intentions with approval and condemn others? The Theory of Moral Sentiments establishes a new liberalism, in which social organization is seen as the outcome of human action but not necessarily of human design.
The Wealth of Nations
A vast and stinging critique of the crippling regulation of commerce and trade that was then current, it argued that if people were set free to better themselves, it would - "as if by an invisible hand" - actually benefit the whole of society. The book influenced thought and politics profoundly, and was one of the foundations of the era of liberal free trade that dominated the Nineteenth Century.
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was the great Scottish philosopher and economist who is best known for his book The Wealth of Nations.
Raised by his widowed mother in Kirkcaldy, Smith won scholarships to Glasgow University and then Balliol College, Oxford. Returning to Glasgow, he was appointed Professor of Logic (1751), then Professor of Moral Philosophy (1752) and lectured on natural theology, ethics, jurisprudence and economics.
At the age of 36 he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, a groundbreaking work on moral philosophy. His abilities caught the eye of the Duke of Buccleuch, who engaged him as Tutor to his son on the Grand Tour of Europe, where Smith met other eminent thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, and Franklin.
Smith retired back to Kirkcaldy to write An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776.
Adam Smith's major works
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
Smith asks that most fundamental question: Why do we regard certain actions or intentions with approval and condemn others? The Theory of Moral Sentiments establishes a new liberalism, in which social organization is seen as the outcome of human action but not necessarily of human design.
The Wealth of Nations
A vast and stinging critique of the crippling regulation of commerce and trade that was then current, it argued that if people were set free to better themselves, it would - "as if by an invisible hand" - actually benefit the whole of society. The book influenced thought and politics profoundly, and was one of the foundations of the era of liberal free trade that dominated the Nineteenth Century.