Adam Smith
![]() | Adam Smith (June 16, 1723 – July 17, 1790) was a
Scottish moral philosopher who was a key figure in the Scottish
Enlightenment and a pioneer of the discipline of political economy. He
is best known for two classics: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759)
and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
(1776). He was born in Kirkcaldy in the county of Fife on the east coast
of Scotland, about 11 miles from Edinburgh. His father died just after
his birth and he inherited his father’s estate at age 2. He studied
moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow and did postgraduate work
at Oxford on scholarship, immersing himself in the Bodleian Library.
Returning to Scotland, he gave lectures in Edinburgh and met David Hume,
who became a colleague and close friend. He gained a professorship at
the University of Glasgow in 1751 and was elected to the Philosophical
Society of Edinburgh in 1752, heading that group a year leader.
Publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments brought him
international recognition and attracted many well-to-do students to
study with him. His interests, however, turned increasingly towards
economics and jurisprudence; he was made a Doctor of Laws in 1762. He
left academia in 1763 to tutor the young Duke of Buccleuch, which
increased his income and enabled him to tour Europe and meet other
intellectual notables, including Benjamin Franklin. He returned to
Kilcady on 1766 and spent the better part of the next ten years working
on The Wealth of Nations, which was an instant success upon publication
in 1776. In 1778 was appointed commissioner of customs in Scotland and
moved to Panmure House in Edinburgh with his mother, where he lived
until his death in 1790. |
The Wealth of Nations
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ranks alongside Newton’s Principia Ma..
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