Scholars normally emphasize the contrast between the two great eighteenth-century thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith. Rousseau is seen as a critic of modernity, Smith as an apologist. Istvan Hont, however, finds significant commonalities in their work, arguing that both were theorists of commercial society and from surprisingly similar perspectives.
In making his case, Hont begins with the concept of commercial society and explains why that concept has much in common with what the German philosopher Immanuel Kant called unsocial sociability. This is why many earlier...
Scholars normally emphasize the contrast between the two great eighteenth-century thinkers Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith. Rousseau is seen a...
When Istvan Hont died in 2013 the world lost a giant of intellectual history. Markets, Morals, Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont's contemporaries to explore his influence, ideas, and methods a work of interpretation that does justice to Hont's influence while developing its own provocative, illuminating arguments.
When Istvan Hont died in 2013 the world lost a giant of intellectual history. Markets, Morals, Politics brings together a celebrated cast of Hont's co...
