18,710 research outputs found
ADAM SMITH'S OPTIMISTIC TELEOLOGICAL VIEW OF HISTORY
Adam Smith's four-stage theory provides the framework for his writings on history. The fourth stage is the commercial epoch; the culmination of history in this stage is a key component in the conventional interpretation of Adam Smith as a prophet of commercialism. In two historical case studies Smith shows the capacity of commercial society to regenerate itself. This potent capacity suggests that commercial society is inevitable. At a certain point in time it also overcomes the major obstacles to its permanence. Smith's philosophy of history anticipates the end of history views of Kant and Hegel.Political Economy,
How Might Adam Smith Pay Professors Today?
Adam Smith’s proposal for paying professors was intended to induce increased faculty knowledge. If students have imperfect information about what they learn, and universities can only imperfectly measure the input of faculty time in student learning, publications may be used to measure faculty knowledge. If professors’ ability to publish is positively related to their ability to produce student learning, which universities can imperfectly measure, publications may be necessary to attract more able professors. Since research signals faculty knowledge, schools that do not value publications per se could require higher publication standards and pay higher wages than schools that value only publications.
Letter from Adam Johnston to General Hitchcock, 1851
Fears conflicts between the Indians and the white miners. Asks for small military force stationed nearby the reservation
ADAM SMITH'S VIEW OF HISTORY: CONSISTENT OR PARADOXICAL?
The conventional interpretation of Adam Smith is that he is a prophet of commercialism. The liberal capitalist reading of Smith is consistent with the view that history culminates in commercial society. The first part of the article develops this optimistic interpretation of Smith's view of history. Smith implies that commercial society is the end of history because 1) it supplies the ends of nature that he identifies; 2) it is inevitable; and 3) it is permanent. The second part of the article shows that Smith has some dark moments in his writings where he seems to reject completely such teleological notions. In this more civic humanist mood he confesses that commercial society does not supply the ends of nature, nor is it inevitable, nor is it permanent. Both views exist in Smith and the commentator is forced to choose between passages in Smith's work in order to support a particular interpretation of the former's view of history.Political Economy,
The Black Londoner Experience: Exploring Black Life through Records of the Court, 1720-1840
Black Londoners have lived in the city for centuries. This collection brings 10 Black London lives together in an accessible volume to share the diversity of their experiences in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries with new readers.
Drawing on the records of the Old Bailey criminal courthouse, these ten carefully selected trials have been chosen to show some of the breadth of Black experience in London during the age of enslavement (c. 1720-1840). The volume includes Black victims, witnesses, and defendants; men, women, and children; sailors, servants, and entertainers; locals, immigrants, and visitors. Some were treated well by the justice system, and others were met with cruelty. Each had their own experience.
While the volume contains details of crime and conflict, crime is not the sole focus. The sources also give us glimpses into the daily lives of these Black individuals as they interacted with the city and its inhabitants. We learn where these Black people spent their time, with whom, doing what, and sometimes even what they had in their pockets.
Each of the ten cases has been accessibly formatted for classroom use or personal study, and features illustrations by Manon Wright. The sources are arranged like plays, making them easy to read aloud as a means of better understanding the theatre of the courtroom and the power dynamics at play. Dr Crymble offers notes and reflections on tricky or foreign concepts in each case, as well as issues that he has noted through experience that students often misinterpret by making modern assumptions about the past.
John Humphreys, 1727
John Cross, 1749
Elizabeth Gift, 1755
Esther Allingham, 1782
John Thomas, 1786
James Wallis, 1801
Dolby Jackson, 1808
Thomas Johnson, 1818
'The Busker' 1831
Louis James Grant, 1840
For serious scholars of Black experience in 18th/19th century London criminal records, the author also recommends the following works:
Tim Hitchcock, Robert Shoemaker, Clive Emsley, Sharon Howard, Jamie McLaughlin, et al, the Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674-1913 (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8, 2018.
Adam Crymble and Emma Azid, 'Black Lives, British Justice: Black People in London Criminal Justice Records, 1720-1841' Journal of Slavery and Data Preservation vol. 2, no 2. (2021): 1-11.
Kathleen Chater. Untold Histories: Black People in England and Wales during the Period of the British Slave Trade, c. 1660-1807 (Manchester, 2011).
Norma Myers, Reconstructing the Black Past (Frank Cass, 1996).
Marika Sherwood. ‘Blacks in the Gordon Riots’, History Today, vol. 47 (1997), 24-28
Letter from Adam Johnston to Luke Lea with other letters and bills, 1851
Explains his actions and decisions for making informal negotiations without authority of special intructions. Reports about having trouble with miners and employing Dr. W.M. Ryer to vaccinate the Indians for smallpox. Enclosed letters to Genleral Hitchcock, from Lt. T. J. Moore, and bills and letters from W. M. Ryer
Adam Smith and Roman Servitudes
This essay is a preprint of an article that appeared at: Tijdschrift voor Rechstsgeschiedenis, 72 (2004), 327–57.This essay discusses Adam Smith historical jurisprudence and his use of Roman law materials in his Lectures on Jurisprudence. It argues that Smith found it difficult to maintain his theory of legal development in the face of a highly developed body of Roman law literature
Digital Preservation Tools for Repository Managers 4: Putting storage, format management and preservation planning in the repository
The 5-module JISC KeepIt course on Digital Preservation Tools for Repository Managers was designed by repository managers. Each module consists of a mix of short presentations and hands-on exercises to learn about the basics and gain practice with each of the tools covered. Module 4 puts storage, format management and preservation planning in the repository, by making such functions available from within the familiar repository interface. Hitchcock's introduction briefly reviews the previous module, which acted as a primer on preservation workflow, formats and characterisation, as preparation for the preservation planning tools to be encountered in this module. This leads into an extensive practical tutorial on logical and bit-stream preservation using Plato (a preservation planning tool) and EPrints (software for creating digital repositories), which Rauber introduces with a rapid recap on the principles and reasons for digital preservation. Moving on to EPrints, Field presents a new 'hybrid' storage controller for EPrints providing selectable storage options locally and in the cloud. EPrints v3.2 introduces an abstracted storage layer which provides the ability for data hosting services such as Amazon S3 to be used as a storage back-end to EPrints. An accompanying tutorial leads users through some of the storage interfaces that EPrints can use, and also shows how to modify the storage policies. Tarrant places the process of managing formats and risk analysis in the EPrints repository interface. Another supporting exercise gives practical experience with the assignment of risk analysis scores to the discovered file formats to aid in digital preservation decisions. In this activity users are presented with a set of test files, a series of scanned images, for use throughout the remaining exercises. In a major element of this tutorial Rauber and Kulovits review preservation planning workflow, showing how to identify requirements using a mindmap approach and then how to upload the output to Plato, the preservation planning tool, to run experiments and produce results. Two exercises are outlined for users in the final 5 slides of the presentation, to describe the collection of test files provided previously, using the mindmap to define the requirements and to create the plan using Plato. The module completes with an exercise on preservation action (see document, no presentation slides), migrating selected files to new formats as identified in the plan. The preservation plan is uploaded to EPrints to act on the test files, displaying the results in an EPrints interface, also providing the means to review the preservation actions. Materials here include all presentations and supplementary materials to support the practicals, so the full course module can be experienced by other users
THE THEOLOGICAL FOUNDATION OF ADAM SMITH'S WORK
The paper will discuss the theological foundation to Smith's writings. Teleology, final causes and divine design were initially seen as central to understanding Smith's writings. Over time, this view fell out of fashion. In the period after World War II, with the rise of positivism, commentators tended to overlook or downplay this interpretation. In the last decade, or so, teleology has started to be restored to its former position as an essential element in understanding Smith. After spelling out Smith's teleology and his view of final causes, divine design and the ends of nature, we try to explain the Panglossian nature of the 'new theistic view' of Smith. While our view differs somewhat, we agree with the essence of the 'new view' claim: a theological view exists in Smith which underpins his moral and economic theories.Political Economy,
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