About Smith

• Taught by Francis Hutcheson
• Used Hutchson’s Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiara, ethicis & jurisprudentiae naturalis elementa continuen as his textbook when covering for the ill Thomas Craigie in 1751 (Ross, Life of Adam Smith 112*)
• Professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, 1752-1764

Teaching

• Letter from A Smith, Edinburgh, 5 Sept 1751, to Dr William Cullen: ‘You mention natural jurisprudence & politics as parts of his lecture which it would be most agreeable for me to take upon…’ University of Glagsow, Special Collections MS Cullen 1157
• Followed Hutcheson‘s curriculum (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)
• Ethics course published as The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)
• Course on political regulation published as The Wealth of Nations (1776) (Cairns, ‘Ethics’ 166*)

Publications, Manuscripts and other Resources

• ‘Juris Prudence or Notes from the Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms delivered in the University of Glasgow by Adam Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy. MDCCLXVI [1766]'(Manuscript fair copy of notes taken by an unidentified student in 1763) University of Glasgow, Special Collections MS Gen 109
• A Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (London and Edinburgh, 1759).
• A Smith, Lectures On Jurisprudence, ed RL Meek, DD Raphael and PG Stein, vol. V of the Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1982). [contains two reports dated 1762-63 and 1766 of Smith’s lectures on jurisprudence at Glasgow University].

Links

Brief Adam Smith biography at Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment.

Adam Smith
by John Kay
etching, 1790
NPG D16843
© National Portrait Gallery, London
Creative Commons Licence

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

• At King’s College, Aberdeen 1765-1795

Teaching

• ‘Dunbar’s lectures comprised three principal elements: the philosophy of mind, in which he was greatly influenced by Thomas Reid; ethics, which saw him draw on Francis Hutcheson‘s idea of innate human sociability and a universal moral code based on natural benevolence; and political economy, a new subject at King’s and one influenced by Adam Smith‘s Wealth of Nations (1776).’ [ODNB*]

Publications, Manuscript, and other Resources

• J Dunbar, ‘Institutes of moral philosophy’ [1789-1794], University of Aberdeen, Special Collections MS 3107/5/2/6

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.

• Professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow, 1746-1751

Teaching

• Used Francis Hutcheson’s Philosophiae moralis institutio compendiaria, ethicis & jurisprudentiae naturalis elementa continuen as his textbook (Ross, Life of Adam Smith 112*)

*For references, see the Site Bibliography.