Between Solitude and Society: An Introduction to Charles Griswold's Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment

In: Perspectives on political science, Band 30, Heft 3, S. 137-138

Abstract

Charles Griswold participates in the vexing question of the individual & society & how they are related to each other in his Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (1999). He asserts Smith's merit as a great thinker by comparing the classical, or Platonic Enlightenment, to the modern, or Smithian Enlightenment. Griswold explores the complex relationship & tensions between Smith's seminal The Theory of the Moral Sentiments & The Wealth of Nations. Introduced here is a symposium discussing Griswold's Smith, focusing on whether Smith's "impartial spectator" provides a normative standard for evaluating various social practices & whether any psychological account of moral feelings can be the basis of describing the phenomenon of morality, among other issues. Questioned is whether Griswold's reconstruction of Smith's closure to metaphysics or opening of skepticism is relevant today. 1 Reference. L. A. Hoffman