Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- 1 From Hume to Hayek Economic philosophy and the role of ideas in social action
- 2 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, I Physicalism and the birth of the ‘man–machine’ doctrine: La Mettrie
- 3 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, II Economics and the rise of ‘economic man’: Jevons and Edgeworth
- 4 Economic man and man–machine Some logical parallels and contrasts between the two concepts
- 5 The logic of the economic situation Complex societies and the choice of conduct–enforcing mechanisms
- 6 The passions of the imagination, I Hume and Adam Smith on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 7 The passions of the imagination, II Hume and Adam Smith on the psychology of the economic agent
- Conclusion to part I
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - The passions of the imagination, II Hume and Adam Smith on the psychology of the economic agent
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 April 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- PART I THE WAR OF IDEAS
- 1 From Hume to Hayek Economic philosophy and the role of ideas in social action
- 2 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, I Physicalism and the birth of the ‘man–machine’ doctrine: La Mettrie
- 3 The scientific challenge to economic philosophy, II Economics and the rise of ‘economic man’: Jevons and Edgeworth
- 4 Economic man and man–machine Some logical parallels and contrasts between the two concepts
- 5 The logic of the economic situation Complex societies and the choice of conduct–enforcing mechanisms
- 6 The passions of the imagination, I Hume and Adam Smith on the sub–rational determinants of belief
- 7 The passions of the imagination, II Hume and Adam Smith on the psychology of the economic agent
- Conclusion to part I
- PART II PATTERNS OF MISUNDERSTANDING
- Conclusion to part II
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
In the last chapter, I examined the concept of passion in the thought of Hume and Adam Smith and suggested that it plays a central role in their analyses of belief–formation processes and human agency in general. This claim, it should be said, is by no means meant to imply that Hume and Smith were in perfect agreement in everything they wrote or that there are no important contrasts to be drawn between the views and positions held by the two friends. Rather, the claim being made is that both shared some fundamental notions about the workings of the human mind, and especially about the ways in which our behaviour and the underlying belief–forming mental habits are affected by sub–rational factors.
In the present chapter I will take up the argument advanced in chapter 6. I shall try to focus more narrowly on the economic psychology put forward by the two leaders of the Scottish Enlightenment, in order to spell out how the passions work at the level of the ordinary actions of agents in earning a livelihood and pushing their way in the world.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Beliefs in ActionEconomic Philosophy and Social Change, pp. 99 - 114Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1991