Adam Smith’s Pluralism and the Limits of Science

Richard Sturn

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics, 2024, vol. 41, issue 1, No 2, 3-27

Abstract: Abstract In recent decades, scholarly work on Adam Smith clarified important aspects of his multi-faceted account of human agency. However, the relevance of his view of knowledge and agency for political economy as science of the legislator has not been clarified sufficiently. It is contended here that Smith’s view of human agency in socio-economic contexts is linked to a kind of pragmatic pluralism, emphasizing the role of the knowledge made available by scientific “systems”, but also their limitations and incompleteness. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, his discussions of the mercantile system and honesty in commerce are considered as examples of pragmatic pluralism reflecting such limitations, while opening up horizons of reasonable disagreement and problem-responsive reform avoiding technocratic fallacies and reckless experimentation.

Keywords: Impartial spectator; Man of system; Mercantile system; Pluralism; Science of the legislator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B1 B3 B4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s41412-024-00145-6 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:homoec:v:41:y:2024:i:1:d:10.1007_s41412-024-00145-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/41412

DOI: 10.1007/s41412-024-00145-6

Access Statistics for this article

Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics is currently edited by M.J. Holler, M. Kocher and K.K. Sieberg

More articles in Homo Oeconomicus: Journal of Behavioral and Institutional Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().