IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sti/wpaper/028-2009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Knowledge, Communication and the Scottish Enlightenment

Author

Listed:
  • Sheila Dow

    (University of Stirling)

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to consider Adam Smith's ideas on rhetoric in relation to his philosophy and his economics, against the background of the Scottish Enlightenment. For Smith, communication was important partly as a vehicle for persuasion in the absence of scope for argument by demonstrable proof. He distinguished between the derivation of (provisional) knowledge by the Newtonian experimental method, and the communication of that knowledge as if it were based on derivation from first principles. Subsequent misinterpretation of Smith's economics can be understood as stemming from mistaking the rhetoric for the method, and interpreting first principles as axioms.

Suggested Citation

  • Sheila Dow, 2009. "Knowledge, Communication and the Scottish Enlightenment," SCEME Working Papers: Advances in Economic Methodology 028/2009, SCEME.
    • Handle: RePEc:sti:wpaper:028/2009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sceme.org.uk/wps/SCEME028_Dow_2009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Adam Smith; Scottish enlightenment; rhetoric;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sti:wpaper:028/2009. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Matthias Klaes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/scemeuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.