Adam Smith’s irony and the Invisible Hand
I reconstruct Adam Smith’s theory of irony and its application. I illustrate how he defines it as a combination of something “grand” with something “mean” and how this is consistent with his anti-Cartesian and post-sceptic epistemology. I suggest that, for Smith, “systems” of any kind, from Cartesia...
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| Tipo de recurso: | artículo |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2017 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM) |
| Repositorio: | Docta Complutense |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/18484 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/18484 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | A12 B12 B31 Adam Smith Rhetoric Unintended results Self-regulating markets Spontaneous order. Retórica Consecuencias no intencionales Auto-regulación de los mercados Orden espontáneo. Historia económica Teorías económicas 5506.06 Historia de la Economía 5307 Teoría Económica |
| Sumario: | I reconstruct Adam Smith’s theory of irony and its application. I illustrate how he defines it as a combination of something “grand” with something “mean” and how this is consistent with his anti-Cartesian and post-sceptic epistemology. I suggest that, for Smith, “systems” of any kind, from Cartesian physics to philosophical monotheism, Stoic ethics, and the “mercantile system” draw their apparent plausibility from some disease of human imagination. I argue that in every field, including political economy, in his view, the philosopher’s task is partially sceptical and partially ironical. That is, it is the task to fight erroneous systems by showing how these arise from unwarranted associations of ideas between apparently “grand” ideas —say, the public interest— with “mean” ones, say, the merchants’ self-interest. In this light, the phrase “invisible hand” turns out to be both an ironic joke and one more application of Smith’s postsceptical theory of knowledge whose target is dismantling all kind of “invisible” entities that human imagination tends to create. |
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