2020-09-10

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

[Note: published at end-of-year during review. This is only a fragment, and I really meant to write more, but then again I really meant to finish it too...]

Adam Smith of course. Initial source of the "invisible hand" phrase. And an excellent book, well worth reading. The thoughts in it are general, though if you are woke you will have to struggle past passages such as When a person comes into his chamber and finds the chairs all standing in the middle of the room, he is angry with his servant, and rather than see them continue in that disorder, perhaps takes the trouble himself to set them all in their places with their backs to the wall indicative of the kind of person he was, and the people he was writing for; though as I say, it is general. Smith's analysis is quite different to Hobbes, or to Popper: rather than axoimatic, it is written as what one may observe by looking about, and thinking deeply.

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