Inspired by his lectures on rhetoric and by game theory, this book provides a new interpretation of Adam Smith’s system of thought. It highlights its coherence through the identification of three reasoning routines and a meta-reasoning routine throughout his work on languages, rhetoric, moral sentiments, self-command, and the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. The identification of these reasoning routines allows the authors to uncover a hitherto poorly understood deep structure of Smith’s work and to explain its main characteristics. How these routines emerged in Smith’s early research on the principles of the human mind is also traced.
This book sheds new light on Adam Smith and his work, highlighting his sophisticated understanding of strategic interaction in all things rhetorical, moral, and economic. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested in the history of ideas, the history of economic thought, game theory, Enlightenment studies, and rhetoric.
Andreas Ortmann is Professor of Experimental and Behavioral Economics at the School of Economics, UNSW Business School, Australia. Prior to his appointment at the Business School, he was Professor of Economics at CERGE-EI, a joint workplace of Charles University and the Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. Prior to that appointment, he taught at Bowdoin and Colby College, Maine, USA. He also was, for a year each, a visiting scholar of the Program on Non-Profit Organizations at Yale University, the Max-Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich, the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin, and the Harvard Business School. His work has been published in journals such as Management Science, Energy Economics, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, Behavioural and Brain Sciences, Journal of Economic Theory, International Journal of Game Theory, Experimental Economics, Psychological Methods, Experimental Psychology: LMC, Economic Journal,European Economic Review, History of Political Economy, Rationality & Society, and many others. His interests are wide-ranging and include game theory, corporate finance, experimental economics, the experimental methods in the social sciences, and the history of economic thought. His Google scholar based index is currently 31 (last five years: 22). He uses Facebook heavily and also writes occasionally for outlets such as The Conversation.
Benoit Walraevens is Assistant Professor in Economics at the University of Caen Normandy in France where he teaches economics at Cherbourg Institute of Technology, Caen’s Institute of Business Administration and IESEG Business School in Paris. His main fields of inquiry are the history of economic thought, economic philosophy, eighteenth-century political economy and moral and political philosophy. He has published papers in the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, History of Economic Ideas, Revue économique and Cahiers d’économie politique.
