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Tag Archives: History
Rousseau’s just-so story
Yesterday, I transcribed three separate passages from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Second Discourse, and I then asked: why would someone like Adam Smith have singled-out those three specific selections in his 1756 letter to the Edinburgh Review? For reference, Smith’s translation of … Continue reading
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Tagged adam-smith, division-of-labor, History, just-so-story, Philosophy, rousseau
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Adam Smith counterfactual
A counterfactual is a statement about what would have happened if a past event had been different. It’s a “what if?” scenario, considering an alternative reality where something that actually occurred did not, or vice versa. On this note, below … Continue reading
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Tagged adam-smith, cognitive-dissonance, commissioner-of-customs, Economics, History
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The Lost Year
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 6 (“Adam Smith’s Lost Year: 1747”) of my forthcoming survey of open Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid (footnotes are below the fold): “There is a small but significant gap in Adam Smith’s biography: … Continue reading
Das Problem des Reichtums: What does Adam Smith mean by *wealth* in The Wealth of Nations?
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 1 of my forthcoming survey of Adam Smith problems with Salim Rashid: “’Wealth’, in the words of Robert L. Heilbroner, ‘is a fundamental concept in economics—indeed, perhaps the conceptual starting point for the discipline.’ … Continue reading
Update re: domestic constitutional violence in Los Angeles
As a follow-up to one of my previous posts on “Domestic Constitutional Violence: Los Angeles” (see here), I want to mention that a federal appellate court in California recently affirmed President Trump’s decision to deploy the California National Guard, ostensibly … Continue reading
Adam Smith and the salons of pre-revolutionary Paris
One of the institutions of the long 18th century that has most captured the imaginations of my co-author, friend, and fellow student of Adam Smith’s grand-tour years (1764-66) Alain Alcouffe and I are the famed salons of pre-revolutionary Paris. Among … Continue reading
Müşir Ahmet Paşa Station (Sirkeci garı)
“In the station are a jam of porters, hotel runners, and Anglo-Levantine gentlemen in slightly soiled collars, badly soiled white trousers, garlicized breaths and hopeful manners who hope to be hired as interpreters…. I called a porter, gave him my … Continue reading
Two interpretations of the hawk-nightingale fable
I introduced the fable of the hawk and the nightingale in my previous post. Today, I will ask, What is the moral of Hesiod’s beautiful bird fable? Alas, there is no holy grail, no single meaning or interpretation that everyone … Continue reading
Adam Smith and the Countess of Boufflers
(Author’s note: below is Part 3 of my series of blog posts on Adam Smith’s second visit to Paris.) I never saw so much wit, grace, and beauty united in one person. Mme de Boufflers, at the age of thirty, … Continue reading
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Tagged adam-smith, comtesse-de-boufflers, History, Philosophy, pre-revolutionary-paris
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prior probability 