https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/J-pop
Also, check out the catchy ballad *Midnight City* by the J-pop band Number_i below:
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REVISED TABLE OF *ADAM SMITH PROBLEMS*
I presented “DIE ADAM SMITH PROBLEME” at the Adam Smith Tokyo Conference yesterday (11 March 2024) and got lots of feedback. (Shout outs to the International Adam Smith Society for inviting me to present my work, to Waseda University for hosting this conference, and to professors Keith Hankin, Toshiaka Ota, Eric Schliesser, Craig Smith, Yuchen Sun, and John James Thrasher for their excellent comments and thoughtful feedback.) Based on this feedback as well as two papers on Adam Smith’s theory of music (one by Tetsuo Taka; another by Eiko Yamamoto), below is an updated table of my running list of “Adam Smith Problems“:
| COLUMN A Brief description of the “Adam Smith problem” | COLUMN B Summary of the unsolved mystery | COLUMN C Some relevant literature regarding the problem |
| Some Open Questions about Smith’s Magna Opera (Partial List) | ||
| The Impartial Spectator Problem | Who, or what, is the impartial spectator? | Hanley 2006; Klein 2016; Klein, Matson, & Doran 2018 [Raphael YEAR] |
| WN-Probleme | (i) When did Smith begin writing WN? (ii) How much of WN is plagiarized? (iii) Is the division of labor, on balance, good or bad? (iv) Is the conspiracy of the merchants soluble? (v) Where, pray tell, are the entrepreneurs? (vi) What is Smith’s solution to ‘Quesnay’s contradiction’? (vii) Was Smith serious when he proposed a union between Britain and her 13 colonies? (viii) How much influence did WN really have on British policy? (Is Smith’s reputation as an economist deserved?) | (i) Keynes 1938 (ii) Rashid 1990 (iii) West 1996 (iv) Sagar 2022 (v) Michael 2007 (vi) Friedman 1962 (vii) Klein 2023 (viii) Rashid 1998 |
| Das Rousseau Problem | What influence did Rousseau have on Smith? | Sagar 2022 |
| Some Open Questions about Smith’s Other Works (Partial List) | ||
| NEW: The Resentment Problem | Is there an inconsistency in Smith’s treatment of resentment in TMS and LJ? | Scott & Schwarze 2023; Ota [IASS 2024 Tokyo] |
| NEW: The Stadial Model Problem | Does Smith even have a stadial theory? If so, what does is it? | Paganelli 2022; |
| NEW: “The Appendix Problem” | Why did Smith append his essay on the origins of language to the third edition of TMS in 1767? | [Eric Schliesser, IASS 2024 Tokyo] |
| NEW: “Smith’s Theory of Music” | Does Smith have a theory of music? | [Tetsuo Taka, IASS 2024 Tokyo; Eiko Yamamoto, ditto] |
| NEW: Das EPS Problem | Are the essays in EPS that are labelled as “unfinished” really unfinished? | [Eric Schliesser, IASS 2024 Tokyo] |
| Young Adam Smith Mysteries | ||
| Smith’s Decision to Leave Oxford | Why did Smith ditch Oxford? | Ortmann 2023 |
| Smith’s Mental Health (The Vernon Smith Conjecture) | Did Smith have Asperger’s? | Craig 2013 |
| Das David Hume Problem | Was Smith really “severely reprimanded” by his Oxford superiors for reading the work of David Hume? | Guerra-Pujol, forthcoming-B |
| Das Edinburgh Problem | Among other things, what was the subject matter of the public lectures Smith gave in Edinburgh from 1748 to 1751? | Rashid 2023 |
| Das Liebesproblem (Smith’s Love Life) | Did Smith have a romantic attachment; and if so, who was she? | Guerra-Pujol 2021 |
| Some Glasgow Enigmas | ||
| NEW: “The Lost Lecture” | There is no trace of the “inaugural lecture” Smith delivered at the University of Glasgow in 1751. What happened to this lecture? | [Craig Smith, IASS 2024 Tokyo] |
| NEW: “The Lectures on Logic” | Smith was Professor of Logic during the 1751/52 academic year. What did Smith’s lectures on logic consist of? | [Eric Schliesser, IASS 2024 Tokyo] |
| Das Adam-Smith-Professor-Problem | Among other things, was Smith as absent-minded as his biographers claim? | Rashid 2023 |
| Miscellaneous Mysteries | ||
| NEW: “Smith and the Jacobites” | Was Adam Smith a closet Jacobite? | Michael R. Taylor [Tokyo, March 10, 2024] |
| Das Adam-Smith-Religionproblem | What are Adam Smith’s true views re: religion? Did his views change over time? | Kennedy 2011 |
| Smith’s Grand Tour Years | Why did Adam Smith resign his prestigious Glasgow professorship? | Alcouffe & Massot-Bordenave 2020 |
| French Connections? | Are Madame Nicole and Madam Nicol the same person, and did Smith have a love affair with either one? | Guerra-Pujol 2021 |
| Das Horace Walpole Problem | What did Smith think of English aesthete Horace Walpole, and what was the nature of their relationship? | Guerra-Pujol 2023a |
| Dalkeith House Enigma | How frequently did Adam Smith visit Dalkeith House, and what was the purpose of these visits? | Bonnyman 2014 |
| Das Adam-Smith-Autorproblem | Why did Smith find the actual act of writing so difficult? | Rashid 2023 |
| Smith’s Last Years | ||
| Das Bürokratproblem (Smith as Customs Commissioner) | (i) Why did Adam Smith agree to become a Commissioner of Customs? (ii) How did Smith’s stint as Commissioner of Customs influence subsequent editions of WN and TMS? | (i) Anderson, Shugart II, & Tollison 1995; Guerra-Pujol 2023b (ii) [ADD CITES] |
| Das Problem der Verlorenen Bucher (The Lost Book Problem) | Why did Adam Smith never finish his promised book on law and government, and had he completed this book, what new contributions to legal theory would he have made? | Griswold 2006; Malloy 2021; Haakonssen 1989 |
| Smith’s Literary Bonfire | Why did Adam Smith want his private papers, manuscripts, etc. to be burned upon his death? | Guerra-Pujol 2021 |
| Counterfactual Adam Smith Problems | ||
| Das Politikproblem | Are Smith’s politics left, right, or centrist? | Craig 2013 |
| Das UBI Problem (Smith’s Views on Income Redistribution) | Would Smith favor income redistribution? UBI? | Hauck, forthcoming; Paganelli 2015; Salter 2012 |
| Concluding Question | ||
| Das Legacy-Problem | How should Smith be remembered? What is his legacy? | |
FYI: Final program of this week’s Adam Smith Tokyo conference
I am reblogging below an announcement from the International Adam Smith Society (IASS):
We are excited to release the final program for our 2024 conference [this] week at Weseda University, Tokyo. The program may be found here. We would …
IASS 2024 Tokyo Conference Program and Transportation Directions
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Travel update: Tokyo
I am attending this year’s meeting of the International Adam Smith Society at Waseda University in Tokyo this week — here is a link to this year’s program; my talk on “Die Adam Smith Probleme” is scheduled for the afternoon of Monday, March 11 — so I will be blogging less frequently, if at all, in the days ahead.
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Assorted links for spring break
Below is a partial list — in alphabetical order, by author — of some the works I will be reading on my long flight to Haneda-Tokyo (note: all the works listed here are open access except for item #3):
- Aden Barton, AWOL from academics (via Harvard Magazine; hat tip: Tyler Cowen)
- Peter Boettke, Why read Adam Smith today (via SSRN)
- Andreas Ortmann & Benoît Walraevens, Adam Smith’s System (via Amazon)
- David Ozonoft, Scientific publishing in the digital era (via Environmental Health; hat tip: Brian Leiter)
- Michael L. Smith, Is Originalism Bullshit? (via SSRN)
- Ruanni Tupas & Veronico N. Tarrayo, The violence of literature review and the imperative to ask new questions (via Applied Linguistics Review; h/t: Prof Leiter)
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If you could ban a word from general usage, which one would it be, and why?
This fun question popped up in my WordPress dashboard the other day. My reply is below the fold:
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*The Oldest Hotel in Paris: Hôtel Chopin*
Via my favorite expat blog “View from the Back“:
We’ve covered the oldest chocolate shop in Paris, now what about its oldest hotel? France, and more particularly Paris, is the flagship destination …
The Oldest Hotel in Paris: Hôtel Chopin
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Table of Adam Smith Problems
Below the fold is a summary in table form — revised and corrected on 8 March 2024 — of my work-in-progress DIE ADAM SMITH PROBLEME” (with Salim Rashid):
Continue readingTable of Contents of *Die Adam Smith Probleme*
Below the fold is the full Table of Contents of the revised and corrected draft of “DIE ADAM SMITH PROBLEME“:
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Wikipedia Wednesday: hexapawn
Via, where else?, Wikipedia: “Hexapawn is a deterministic two-player game invented by Martin Gardner. It is played on a rectangular board of variable size, for example on a 3×3 board or on a regular chessboard. On a board of size n×m, each player begins with m pawns, one for each square in the row closest to them. The goal of each player is to either advance a pawn to the opposite end of the board or leave the other player with no legal moves, either by stalemate or by having all of their pieces captured.”
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prior probability 