Adam Smith and the legacy of modern political philosophy: power, sovereignty, and commerce

• Grant number: 22/01836-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Post-doctor
• Start date: October 26, 2022
• End date: October 25, 2023
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy - History of Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Alberto Ribeiro Gonçalves de Barros
• Grantee: Thiago Vargas Escobar Azevedo
• Supervisor: Paul Sagar
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: King's College London, England
• Associated to the scholarship: 20/12605-8 - Power and trade: association and conflict during the emergence of political economy, BP.PD

Abstract

This Research Internship Abroad (BEPE) project has three very precise objectives that shall lead us through a central stage of our research, namely, an in-depth study of the role of politics in Adam Smith's writings, focusing on its relation to key concepts developed by modern political philosophy. In order to provide precision, feasibility and analytical accuracy to the project, these will be, in summary, the main problems to which we shall dedicate our attention: 1) to analyse how, in an opposition to Hobbes, Smith develops a notion of power attributed to the command one possesses over the labour available in the market; 2) to examine the effect that the division between the trading spirit and the spirit of sovereignty plays in the role attributed to the Sovereign and the Government in the Smithian "system of natural liberty"; 3) to investigate the role played by the propensity to barter (and its rhetorical function) in the Wealth of Nations, in view of the considerations presented on the subject in other texts such as Lectures on Jurisprudence. (AU)