7. Adam Smith’s Reasoning Routines and the Deep Structure of His Oeuvre

The chapter delves into Adam Smith’s early life and intellectual journey, focusing on his time at the University of Glasgow and Oxford, and his subsequent lectures on rhetoric and belles lettres. It identifies three key reasoning routines that Smith employed throughout his career: a Newtonian view of the world as a machine governed by laws, an understanding of strategic interactions in rhetoric and morality, and an evolutionary perspective on social and economic systems. The chapter argues that Smith’s early insights into language formation and rhetoric deeply influenced his moral philosophy and economics, demonstrating how his conceptual lenses evolved and interacted over time. The analysis also highlights Smith’s unique approach to scientific inquiry, driven by a desire to understand and explain the world through observation and experimentation, and his belief in the power of sympathy and persuasion to create social harmony. The chapter concludes by emphasizing the tension between Smith’s providential view of society and his growing awareness of the challenges posed by information asymmetries and strategic interactions, and how this tension shaped his later works on moral philosophy and economics. Overall, the chapter offers a comprehensive and engaging exploration of Adam Smith’s intellectual development and the deep structure of his thought, making it a valuable resource for scholars and enthusiasts of Smith’s work and the Enlightenment era.