Adam Smith

Life

Adam Smith was born 5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790 in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. Beginning his post secondary education under Francis Hutcheson at the University of Glasgow at 14 years old, Adam Smith would go on to receive the Snell Exhibition scholarship to Balliol College, of Oxford University.

He is reported to have been a avid reader of David Hume and his “A Treatise of Human Nature.” Following in the footsteps of Gorgias of Leontini, in 1748 Adam Smith began his career as a public speaker in Edinburgh, sponsored by Lord Kames.

Lord Kames working with John Home, created the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh in 1783 and Adam Smith was a founding member. The list of club members would eventually include David Hume, the written correspondence between the two men is available in David Hume’s “Letters from Hume to William Strahan.”

Works

Also, like Gorgias, Adam Smith is mainly known for two significant works, which are “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and “Wealth of Nations.” His “Wealth of Nations” is the holy book of laissez-faire economics and capitalism.

In the eyes of Adam Smith there is no need to direct your action toward the good or what is lawful because, as he demonstrated in his “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” the invisible hand will direct the course of actions towards a desirable end.

Death

In May 1773, Smith was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London and and was elected a member of the Literary Club two years later.

In 1778, Smith became the commissioner of customs in Scotland and From 1787 till a year before he died, he acted in the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow.

Adam Smith Reflecting Gorgias

Significant Quotes

“The Administration of the great system of the universe, and the care of the universal happiness of all rational being is the business of God and not of man. To man is allotted a much humbler department, but on more suitable to the weakness of his powers, and to the narrowness of his comprehension.”

— Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)

Very much in line with Gorgias, and thus opposing Socrates, Adam Smith rejects the idea of doing anything for the sake of the good.

““Hunger, thirst, sexual attraction, the love pleasure and the dread of pain, prompts us to apply those means for there own sakes, without any consideration of tendency towards the benificient ends which the great director intended to produce them.”

— Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)