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Adam Smith’s Pluralism and the Limits of Science

Richard Sturn

Homo Oeconomicus2024https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-024-00145-6article
ABDC C
Weight
0.30

What the paper says

Abstract In recent decades, scholarly work on Adam Smith clarified important aspects of his multi-faceted account of human agency. However, the relevance of his view of knowledge and agency for political economy as science of the legislator has not been clarified sufficiently. It is contended here that Smith’s view of human agency in socio-economic contexts is linked to a kind of pragmatic pluralism, emphasizing the role of the knowledge made available by scientific “systems”, but also their limitations and incompleteness. Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments , his discussions of the mercantile system and honesty in commerce are considered as examples of pragmatic pluralism reflecting such limitations, while opening up horizons of reasonable disagreement and problem-responsive reform avoiding technocratic fallacies and reckless experimentation.

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https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-024-00145-6

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@article{richard2024,
  title        = {{Adam Smith’s Pluralism and the Limits of Science}},
  author       = {Richard Sturn},
  journal      = {Homo Oeconomicus},
  year         = {2024},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1007/s41412-024-00145-6},
}

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Evidence weight

0.30

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.00 × 0.4 = 0.00
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.