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Adam Smith (1723–90) is unusual among philosophers from over two hundred years ago. He is unusual because his work is still widely read and discussed today. But more significant than this, his name is still widely known by the general public. Smith has become one of the few world historical figures who have entered into the common intellectual landscape of our culture. Unfortunately the ‘Adam Smith’ that exists in the popular imagination is somewhat different from the Adam Smith who lived and wrote in eighteenth-century Scotland.

Smith and his thought have become the focus of increasing interest among scholars since the publication of a critical edition of his writings in the late 1970s. Part of the aim of this scholarship has been to dispel the mythology and correct the caricature that has arisen around Smith. Adam Smith the first economist, the father of capitalism, the defender of laissez-faire economics, the advocate of selfishness, and the prophet of the invisible hand of the market has been seized upon by both advocates of free market economics and critics of capitalism. Smith has been set up as both the hero of the libertarian right and the villain of neo-liberalism. This caricature is something that Smith scholars have sought to correct by careful study of what he actually wrote. While such views are commonplace among the general public, those who read Smith’s two great books, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations, quickly see that there is much more to the man and his thought. That said, many of those who do this are then struck by the apparent tension between the discussion of sympathy in the former and the analysis of self-interest in the latter. This seeming contrast between a description of humans as benevolent in one book and selfish in the other led some of Smith’s nineteenth-century German readers to regard his thought as self-contradictory. As we will see, the so-called ‘Adam Smith Problem’ has been dismissed by Smith scholars, but its residue lingers on in the popular imagination.

The present volume is intended to be a contribution to these tasks of dispelling a caricature and dismissing an accusation of inconsistency. Its aim is to present a reading of the whole of Smith’s work, to indicate the systematic and interconnected nature of his writings on topics as diverse as economics, moral philosophy, science, and literature. In so doing, it will present a reading of Smith that is unified by his consistent application of a particular methodology, a way of doing philosophy or science, which acts as a powerful tool when applied across a range of what are now distinct academic disciplines. In addition to providing an argument that focuses on Smith’s texts, we will trace his intellectual context and explain why he was interested in the particular ideas and subjects that he discussed.

Understanding where Smith came from, how he was educated, whom he interacted with, and what he hoped to achieve, will illuminate his thought. Showing that Smith was a man of his time helps to dispel the contemporary caricature, but it will also show the reader that he remains an enduringly relevant thinker, one who should not be confined to history. The basis of this argument will be two-fold: it will stress the relevance of Smith’s understanding of the nature of what we now call the social sciences, and drawing on that it will emphasize the centrality of his attempts to explain the unintended consequences of human action. Taken together, these two aspects of his thinking open up a Smithian way of understanding the world that lies at the heart of this book.