His Memory has Misled Him? Two Supposed Errors in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments

摘要

D.D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, the editors of the Glasgow Edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments (referred to as TMS in this paper), document numerous errors Adam Smith makes throughout that text. They often attribute the errors to memory lapses by Smith: ?Smith?s memory has misled him.? Sometimes the error is a misquotation ( Smith, 1982a , pp. 102 n.5, 259 n.34), sometimes it is an error of reference (242 n.9, 253 n.27, 322 n.1), sometimes they speculate about what Smith may have been alluding to and then argue that his allusions may be confused, conflated, or misremembered (14 n.1, 44 n.1, 242 n.9, 253 n.27, 254 n.30). We build on the work done by Raphael and Macfie to examine two of these supposed errors to evaluate the degree to which they might have been deliberate and esoteric in nature. The first involves incorrectly substituting Parmenides for Antimachus into a story Cicero relates in his work Brutus , a story in which the only remaining auditor is Plato. The second involves the inclusion of Ulysses in a list of individuals Cicero gives in De Officiis. Both cases derive from texts by Cicero. In his work Philosophy Between the Lines: The Lost History of Esoteric Writing , Arthur Melzer explains that ?implausibleD.D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, the editors of the Glasgow Edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments , document numerous errors made by Adam Smith. We examine two alleged er-rors, both regarding stories found in Cicero, to evaluate the extent to which they might be esoteric: one involving Parmenides and Plato, the other involving Ulysses. We argue there is good reason to suspect that the first error is deliberate and contains hidden meaning, but that, in the second case, Raphael and Macfie are mistaken in their claim that Smith erred. Finally, given Smith?s discussion of dissimulation, we comment on his probable atti-tude toward defensive esotericism. ? 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.