The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Abstract

This chapter talks about the principles of human nature by reference to the History of Astronomy and provides us with an example of philosophical or conjectural history. Adam Smith emphasised the role of subjective or psychological preferences as revealed in the history of astronomy in drawing attention to the role of analogy; that is, to the tendency to explain a particular problem in terms of knowledge gained in an unrelated field such as the Pythagoreans who first studied arithmetic. He himself took his essay seriously, as attested by a letter written to David Hume on the eve of his departure to London in 1773. Smith addressed himself to the psychological stimuli to study as they affect both the ordinary man and the philosopher or scientist, thus elaborating on one of the problems which had been touched upon in the lectures on didactic discourse as contained in the Rhetoric.

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