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This paper gives an account of important aspects of Smith’s methods in An Inquiry Concerning the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN). I reinterpret Smith’s distinction between natural and market prices, by focusing on Smith’s account of the causes of the discrepancies of market prices from natural prices. I argue that Smith postulates a “natural course” of events in order to stimulate research into institutions that cause actual events to deviate from it. Smith’s employment of the fiction of a natural price should, thus, not be seen merely as an instance of general or partial equilibrium analysis, but, instead, as part of a theoretical framework that will enable observed deviations from expected regularities to improve his theory. For Smith theory is a research tool that allows for a potentially open-ended process of successive approximation. These are the Newtonian elements in Smith. I provide evidence from Smith’s posthumously published Essays on Philosophical Subjects (EPS, 1795), especially “The History of Astronomy” (“Astronomy”), that this accords with Smith’s views on methodology.¹ By way of illumination, Smith’s explanation of the introduction of commerce in Europe is contrasted with that of Hume as presented in “Of Commerce.” I argue that Smith’s treatment is methodologically superior.

In this chapter, I highlight the need to turn the institutional ethnography (IE) lens of enquiry onto IE itself, and consequently, the importance for institutional ethnographers to attend to their standpoint in taking up and activating their understanding of IE. Many, including Wise and Stanley (1990) and Walby (2007), celebrate Smith’s sociology but raise important ontological and epistemological questions about IE’s own recursive power. While IE has developed from a critique of wider sociological inquiry, it is troubled by the institutional ethnographer’s own standpont when using IE uncritically, without reflexivity of their standpoint in relation with IE and knowledge generation. IE stands in relation between the researcher and the everyday of the research participants in a local research context that is particular and plural, situated and dynamic. The chapter highlights a particular critique by Dorothy Smith of Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus as a “blobontology,” yet considers the theoretical similarities between Smith and Bourdieu. I argue that institutional ethnographers and IE itself are not be immune from the kinds of unravelling that Smith undertakes of other approaches to sociological inquiry. Researcher standpoint, reflexivity, and their relation to knowledge generation are therefore critical aspects of approach without which there is potential to “other” and develop morally questionable representations of people that diminishes the actuality of their subjective experience.

Montes's interpretations of propriety and of self-command, the master Smithian virtue, led him to place Smith's ethics in the deontology camp with Immanuel Kant, clearly opposed to the utilitarians. This is an issue that is worth pursuing for two reasons. First, the relation between Smith and Kant has not been sufficiently explored in the secondary literature. Samuel Fleischacker (1991, 1996) has investigated the lines of influence from Smith to Kant. There is, for example, a striking mention of the impartial spectator in the form of “an impartial rational spectator” in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Kant [1785] 1997, 4:393, p. 7), yet it is impossible to tell exactly and to what extent Kant's reading of Smith contributed to the development of his own thought. Be that as it may, there is, nonetheless, a logical consistency between Smith's description of the operation of the conscience, as agents learn to construct the perspective of an ideal impartial spectator from which to accurately judge their own thoughts and actions on the one hand and the categorical imperative on the other. Smith's emphasis on impartiality in judging and Kant's emphasis on universality seem to be just different ways of getting at the transcendent nature of true moral character and action. In Smith, then, it is the virtue of self-command through which agents participate in the molding of their own character and stir themselves up for right action (as judged from this ideal perspective). As Montes argues, the spectator judges self-command in terms of the spectator's sense of propriety, not through an analysis of the merit or demerit of an action. It is a deontological argument, not a consequentialist one. When properly understood, self-command entails the development of a morally autonomous agent, similar to Kant's. Thus, Montes concludes:The philosophical meaning of propriety, underpinned by the virtue of self-command, and the role of the conscience introduced by the supposed impartial spectator, situates the sympathetic process within a philosophical tradition that seems closer to Kant than to utilitarianism. (p. 53)

Review of Keppler, J. H. (2010). Adam Smith and the economy of the passions. London: Routledge. ISBN: 978-0415 569866. $155.00.

In previous efforts the author has examined the various “men” of economics or human‐nature assumptions of “economic thinkers” as a way of treating the history and philosophy of the discipline. Here, under the thematic penumbra of “Man as the Centre of the Social Economy”, and hoping to incorporate the fruits of further inquiry into the matter, those “creatures” and their fashioners are critically reconsidered with a view towards arriving at a more adequate conception of a truly human “economiser” and – accordingly – science of human economy. In Part II, having presented homo oeconomicus in both his/her “impudent” and “honourable” versions, we shall attempt to transcend homo socioeconomicus and even our own (former) homo oeconomicus humanus as well.

It is commonly held that Adam Smith is a prophet of capitalism. There is a good deal of evidence pointing towards his optimism about commercial society. This article claims to show the pessimistic side of Smith’s view of commercialism. While some of Smith’s pessimism is obvious, some emerges only after considering his six ends of human nature. We show that according to Smith’s own criteria, commercial society is not good. We also show that Smith considers commercial society to be neither inevitable nor permanent. In other words, Smith says that commercial society fails on three counts. Rather than a prophet of capitalism as the end of history, Smith emerges from this analysis as a major critic.

Adam Smith’s theory of economic growth, as presented in the Wealth of Nations, is based upon the potential for increasing returns in manufacturing generated by increased specialization and division of labour and upon the accumulation of real capital, which is necessary to support the greater division of labour. The increasing returns part of Smith’s theory leaves open the possibility that bank credit, issued judiciously, might be used to extend the market and so increase an economy’s growth rate. However, Smith’s theory of bank credit and note extension is quite conservative. Henry Dunning Macleod, a century after Smith, made much of the potential of credit to extend the market. Notes Smith’s apparent inconsistency and considers reasons why he might have chosen not to promote the use of credit to enhance economic growth.

The purpose of this paper is to outline the contributions of Smiths legacy in Indigenous methodologies and to show how her interventions encourage and facilitate meaningful research relationships with Indigenous communities. It is also a practical guide for future Indigenous researchers who aim to work with their communities.

This article outlines the legacy and interventions from Linda Smith that have influenced my research and pedagogy work with my community—the Navajo Nation. I weave together a Kejnrj story and theory to show how Smith’s predominant legacy has taught me how to create, maintain and safeguard relationships with horses, humans and knowledge while working within a Western institution.

I discuss the navigation of research relationships before, during and after official research and the implications this has for increasing indigenous sovereignty in partnership with research. It also describes the process of researcher reflexivity required for Indigenous methodological work.

This paper outlines one Navajo researcher’s individual story with research on community. This adds value to researchers who intend to do research/pedagogy work with Native communities.

The purpose of this chapter is to explore whether and how angel investors’ emotions unfold in the investment opportunity evaluation process as they interact with the social environment. Complementing recent research that has emphasized the financial calculations, we add angel investors’ own emotional arousal to the list of tools that may help them to rate investment opportunities.

Drawing on semi-structured qualitative interviews, we develop a phenomenological analysis of the investment opportunity evaluation process at the level of angel investors’ lived experience.

Our findings indicate that when angel investors use their emotional arousal in evaluating investment criteria, they engage in a developmental process characterized by three elements: subjective validation, social validation, and investment decision.

We illuminate how discrete emotions can complement rational considerations in the opportunity evaluation journey. Capturing the nature of emotion as action oriented, embodied, socially situated, and distributed, we embrace its adaptive socially situated dynamics.

Taking a step toward better understanding of the soft aspects in the relationship development that leads to investments, we hope this study will help not only those entrepreneurs who need funding but also those policymakers who design new incentives that improve the flow of investment into promising new ventures.

We demonstrate how angel investors’ emotions can complement their rational considerations in the investment opportunity evaluation process as they interact with the social environment. Identifying boundary values for the conditions that are necessary and sufficient to advance in the process, we have demonstrated how emotion can serve as a driving or restraining force not only during subjective validation but also during social validation.