Nick Phillipson's guest appearances

Nick Phillipson

Philosophy Bites

Lectures in Intellectual History

John Dunn

Quentin Skinner

Philip Schofield

Teresa Bejan

George Berkeley

Jeremy Bentham

David Hume

Susan James

James Wilson

Carlo Rovelli

Nick Bostrom

Philip Goff

John Campbell

Martha Nussbaum

Paul Bloom

OwlTail

It is fairly conventional now to think of the 'science of man' as possibly the signal intellectual achievement of the Enlightenment in Scotland. David Hume coined the phrase  and attached it to his Treatise of Human Nature, in which he placed the study of human nature on empirical (or experimental) foundations. On this basis Hume was to develop a powerful theory of justice, political obligation, morality, beauty, and natural religion - all of it held together as the functions of what Hume calls, in the common way, sympathy. Adam Smith was an early and acute reader of Hume's Treatise, and his theories about language, property and progress can be seen to complete the Humean project and create the science of man that Hume had promised. In time, it was to be sustained by Smith's own theory of sentiment and socialibilty, based on Humean premises, but significantly different from our own. In this lecture, Nick Phillipson challenges these reasonable inferences about Hume and Smith, and asks whether we really want to think of Hume as the author of a "projet manqué", and whether we want to think of Smith as someone who was simply tweaking Humean language?

Nick Phillipson - Hume, Smith and the Science of Man in Scotland

Adam Smith, the great thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment, is best known as an economist. But much of his work was philosophical, and even his economic thinking is probably best understood as part of a larger project of attempting a science of humanity. Nick Phillipson, author of an acclaimed biography of Adam Smith, discusses Smith's philosophical agenda in this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the Institute of Philosophy.

Adam Smith, the great thinker of the Scottish Enlightenment, is best known as an economist. But much of his work was philosophical, and even his economic thinking is probably best understood as part of a larger project of attempting a science of humanity. Nick Phillipson, author of an acclaimed biography of Adam Smith, discusses Smith's philosophical agenda in this episode of the <a href="http://www.philosophybites.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Philosophy Bites</a> podcast. Philosophy Bites is made in association with the<a href="http://www.philosophy.sas.ac.uk" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"> Institute of Philosophy</a>.

Nick Phillipson on Adam Smith on What Human Beings Are Like