Suchergebnisse

On March 26, 1863, Ingraham P. Smith writes to his mother about his delayed pay that he has received and that he will send funds to his family. He tells his mother that five men were selected to be moved to a hospital near their homes, but his name was not chosen. Posted from Finley Hospital, Washington, D.C.

Four-page letter from Lysander Spooner in Boston [Massachusetts] to Gerrit Smith dated December 21, 1860, dicussing an extradition case in Canada [involving slave John Anderson].

First impressions matter when buying a book; they are less important when chasing up a reference in a library or following a reading list to a book shop. C.T. Hsia on Chinese Literature is a serious tome which looks like a biography – a bust portrait of the octogenarian author smiles out of a stark black and white dust jacket, and the playful title leaves ambiguous whether it is C. T. Hsia or his thoughts we are buying. One of the delights of reputation and seniority is the publication of a lifetime's collected essays. This produces a gift to the reader which takes its rightful place as a history of criticism as well as literary criticism, gathering 16 essays published between 1962 (in The China Quarterly) and 1990, a volume for celebration. As undergraduates of modern Chinese literature, we used to groan when C. T. Hsia appeared on reading lists, as much because the works containing the essays were dog-eared, smelly old volumes, as for their polemicism. Publication in a smart, single volume presents easy access and allows the essays to be contemplated for their merit and range. Since C. T. Hsia has been considered, as Patrick Hanan writes, "without question the most influential critic of Chinese fiction since the 1960s," his essays remain important reading matter.

What explains the ambition to get rich? Adam Smith is clear that commercial ambition, the passionate desire for great wealth, is not simply a desire to satisfy one's material needs. His argument on what underlies it, however, is not obvious. I review three possibilities suggested by Smith's work and the scholarly literature—vanity, the love of system, and the desire for tranquility—and conclude that none of them captures the underlying motive of commercial ambition. Instead, I argue that Smith understands commercial ambition as a misguided desire for excellence. Ambitious pursuers of wealth are driven by the desire to deserve and to enjoy recognition for their excellence, but their judgment of what is truly excellent is corrupted by the standards of a wealth-worshipping society. Instead of appealing to the moral standpoint of the impartial spectator, they construct in their minds and follow a corruptive moral guide: the wealth-worshipping spectator.

In his posthumously published lectures, Politics in Commercial Society, István Hont argues that Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith should be understood as theorists of commercial society. This article challenges Hont's interpretation of both thinkers and shows that some of his key claims depend on conflating the terms 'commercial society' and 'commercial sociability'. I argue that, for Smith, commercial society should not be defined in terms of the moral psychology of commercial sociability, before questioning Hont's Epicurean interpretation of Smith's theory of sociability. I then turn to Rousseau and outline some of the difficulties involved with classifying him as a theorist of commercial society, the most important of which is that he often appeared to be more deeply opposed to commercial progress than Hont suggests. I conclude by highlighting some of the most salient differences between Rousseau's and Smith's views of the politics of eighteenth-century Europe.

AbstractAdam Smith raised a series of obstacles to effective large-scale social planning. In this paper, I draw these Smithian obstacles together to construct what I call the "Great Mind Fallacy," or the belief that there exists some person or persons who can overcome the obstacles Smith raises. The putative scope of the Great Mind Fallacy is larger than one might initially suppose, which I demonstrate by reviewing several contemporary thinkers who would seem to commit it. I then address two ways the fallacy might be overcome, finding both wanting. I close the paper by suggesting that Smith's Great Mind Fallacy sheds interesting light on his "impartial spectator" standard of morality, including with respect to the specific issues of property and ownership.

Two-page letter from Lysander Spooner in Boston [Massachusetts] to Gerrit Smith dated February 16, 1856, discussing Smith's letter to [Salmon P.] Chase and [Charles] Sumner.

On October 4, 1863, Ingraham P. Smith writes to his mother that he was examined to see if he was fit to return to his regiment, but has been sick and was sent back to his quarters. He writes about sending money home and wants his sister Libby to write to him. He writes about making rings for his sibling. Posted from New Camp Convalescent, Alexandria, Va.