I have said it before, and I will say it again: there is more than one “Das Adam Smith Problem”! By way of example, below are just a small sample of some of the many unresolved Adam Smith mysteries that I have featured on this blog and that I will be presenting in one week’s time (11 March 2024) at the next meeting of the International Adam Smith Society, which will take place at Waseda University in Tokyo:

DAS ‘THEORY OF MORAL SENTIMENTS’ PROBLEM

A number of scholars have pointed out a wide variety of problems with Adam Smith’s first great work, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). See, for example, my 23 April 2023 blog post: Dissing Smith’s “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (with apologies to Dan Klein!), where I describe Walter Bagehot’s devastating takedown of TMS. But the one ‘TMS mystery’ that stands out the most to me is this: why did Adam Smith write TMS in the first place: to change the world or just describe it? (That is, how should TMS be read, as a normative work or a descriptive one?)

DAS ‘WEALTH OF NATIONS’ PROBLEM

Among the many mysteries surrounding Smith’s Wealth of Nations (WN), its origins and its originality are still in dispute: when did Smith start writing his political economy masterpiece, and how much of WN was plagiarized? See, by way of example, both of my 24 Feb. 2024 blog posts, Was Adam Smith a plagiarist? and Another Adam Smith mystery: Toulouse, 1764.

TMS UND WN PROBLEME

An additional set of “Adam Smith Problems” are common to both TMS and WN; namely, how much of either work should be read as a response to Rousseau? More generally, what did Smith think of Rousseau, what influence did this reclusive Swiss author have on Smith’s intellectual development, and did the two great Enlightenment thinkers ever meet? See, for instance, my 26 Feb. 2024 blog post on Paul Sagar’s Adam Smith Problem.

PROBLEME ÜBER RELIGION UND POLITIK (PROBELMS ABOUT SMITH’S VIEWS ON RELIGION AND POLITICS)

Was Smith a pious Presbyterian, a closet Atheist, or something in-between? Also, if Smith were alive today, would his politics be ‘left’ or ‘right’ or ‘centrist’? (In addition to these “first-order” questions, I would add a “second-order” one: who cares?)

DAS PROBLEM DES VERMÄCHTNISSES VON ADAM SMITH (THE PROBLEM OF ADAM SMITH’S LEGACY)

Perhaps the most important–and most contentious–Adam Smith problem is this: how does Smith deserve to be remembered, and how would Smith himself have answered this question? See, for example, my 28 Feb. 2024 blog post on Adam Smith, poet?

ADDITIONAL ADAM SMITH PROBLEMS

See my 15 April 2023 blog post on Die Adam Smith Probleme: a comprehensive recap as well as my 27 Feb. 2024 post on Google Scholar’s contribution to *Die Adam Smith Probleme*.