Adam Smith's History of Astronomy Argument: How Broadly Does It Apply? And Where Do Propositions Which «Sooth the Imagination» Come from?

Warren Samuels

History of Economic Ideas, 2007, vol. 15, issue 2, 53-78

Abstract: Smith’s «Essay on Astronomy» argues that we settle for propositions setting minds at rest, especially when truth is unattainable. I suggest that 1. the area of setting minds at rest, through propositions asserting a logical sequence of cause and effect (or otherwise) lets people feel that they are not victims of unexplained forces, is extraordinarily wide-ranging; and 2. the sources of such propositions are found in the system of social belief including the mythic system of society, social control as social construction of reality, and the struggle over the structure of power and over the State.

Date: 2007
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