The Rhetoric of Tenses in Adam Smith's the Wealth of Nations

Erscheinungsjahr 2017
ISBN: 978-90-04-34790-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 275, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 238 mm, Gewicht: 544 g

Reihe: Brill's Studies in Intellectual History

The Rhetoric of Tenses in Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” examines the tenses of the predicates in the famous and typical passages of the monumental work to explore the intricacies of the rhetoric and argument they support, paying particular attention to the question of temporality. Smith’s subtle modulation of language attests to his reluctance to offer a mere theory of economics and to his refusal to ignore the complicated challenges history and actuality offer to his beliefs in the natural system of liberty. The theoretical frame of the book is derived from the grammarians of Smith’s age, in particular James Harris. The supple interdisciplinary approach of this book invites literary and publishing histories to converse with intellectual history.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Yoon, Hye-Joon

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Geschichte der VWL
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Volkswirtschaftslehre Volkswirtschaftslehre Allgemein Wirtschaftstheorie, Wirtschaftsphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
List of Tables
Introduction
1 “The Nicest Subtleties”: Smith and Other Grammarians
The Author, His Publishers, and the Pages
Grammarians and “the Consideration of Verbs”
James Harris on the Present Tense
Tenses of Non-Presence
2 “The Didactick and the Rhetoricall” Tenses of Philosophy
“Every Where and Always Invariably One”
“Private Interests and Passions”
A Philosophy of Commerce?
3 “Hence the Origin”: Tenses of History, Conjectural and Actual
In Search of the “Causes”
The Conjectural History of Labor and the Actual History of Money
“The Remembrance of Former Events”
4 The “Progress of Opulence” and the Present Perfect
The Progress of “Progress”
Climate, Nations, and Progress
Natural and Unnatural Progresses
5 The “System of Natural Liberty” and Futurity
“The Prospect of Concatenated Events”
“System” and “Value”
Credo in the “Invisible Hand”
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Hye-Joon Yoon, Ph.D. (1992), Yonsei University, is Professor of English at that university, and teaches intellectual history in addition to English and comparative literature. His numerous publications include Metropolis and Experience: Defoe, Dickens, Joyce (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2012).