The Aesthetics of Adam Smith

Peter Jones

Chapter 3 in Adam Smith: International Perspectives, 1993, pp 43-62 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract In a well known passage from his Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D., delivered to the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1793, Dugald Stewart wrote: His acquaintance with the polite literature both of ancient and modern times was extensive; and amidst his various other occupations, he had never neglected to cultivate a taste for the fine arts; — less, it is probable, with a view to the peculiar enjoyments they convey, (though he was by no means without sensibility to their beauties,) than on account of their connection with the general principles of the human mind; to an examination of which they afford the most pleasing of avenues. To those who speculate on this very delicate subject, a comparison of the modes of taste that prevail among different nations, affords a valuable collection of facts; and Mr. Smith, who was always disposed to ascribe to custom and fashion their full share in regulating the opinions of mankind with respect to beauty, may naturally be supposed to have availed himself of every opportunity which a foreign country afforded him of illustrating his former theories. (E, 305)1

Keywords: Moral Sentiment; Sensual Pleasure; Instrumental Music; Artificial Fruit; Polite Literature (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1993
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-22520-0_3

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