tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post6081317086206150159..comments2024-03-28T08:57:53.180+00:00Comments on Darwinian Conservatism by Larry Arnhart: Joseph Cropsey's Straussian Attack on Adam SmithLarry Arnharthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14619785331100785170noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16355954.post-66740370658874045632014-11-04T16:05:48.110+00:002014-11-04T16:05:48.110+00:00This is a fair criticism of Cropsey. Perhaps the ...This is a fair criticism of Cropsey. Perhaps the thinkers of the Scottish Enlightenment can be thought of as part Strauss's Second Wave" of modernity; that is, they shared Rousseau's criticism of the contractualism of Hobbes and Locke as being based on excessive "rationalism" while underestimating the role of sentiment as the foundation of moral reasoning and beliefs. (Despite the fact that Hume and Rousseau personally quarreled there are some similarities in their arguments).<br /><br />A better indication of the relation of Smith and Aristotle is given by another Straussian, Laurence Berns, in his article, "Aristotle and Adam Smith on Justice: Co-Operation between Ancients and Moderns?" Review of Metaphysics,1994: <br /> <br />"Smith was not an Aristotelian. His chief mentor, I believe, was his good friend Hume. I do not mean that he intended to cooperate with Aristotle. I will attempt to show, however, that Smith gave impressively plausible psychological accounts of things, especially the sentimental side of ethics, that Aristotle observed, noted, and alluded to, but did not elaborate. In this sense he could be thought of as "working together" with Aristotle, working together to make the same things more understand able. The fact, if it is a fact, that from very different philosophic stances different philosophers see very much the same, or very similar, things could suggest that the things have an intelligible articulation of their own. Despite their differences, Aristotle, Hume, and Smith all share a certain empiricism, that is, they all begin from what aims at being a most careful description of original experience. Their adherence to what Hume calls "the experimental method of reasoning" seems to have been part of what made fidelity to experience so important to Smith and Hume that they became able to see again with Aristotle what earlier moderns on principle had looked away from."Xenophonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09664620430604622777noreply@blogger.com