HES: Re: RVW--Fayazmanesh on Evensky, _Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy: A Historical and Contemporary Perspective on Markets, Law, Ethics, and Culture_

[Eric Schliesser]

Think what one may about Evensky's 'Darwinian' reading of Smith's four stages (and/or Smith's 'limitations' more generally), but Sasan Fayazmanesh's implied suggestion that Evensky is anachronistic (reading Smith after Darwin, while historically Darwin comes after Smith) ignores the fact that Hume (in particular, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion) and Smith were read by Darwin and acknowledged as influences on his own 'evolutionary' thinking. This is not to ignore genuine difference between the proto-Darwinian strains within the Scottish Enlightenment, which certainly recognized the role of selection in evolution (of systems, cultures, institutions, language, etc), and Darwin's own views. However, Evensky's reading should not be dismissed out of hand.

Eric Schliesser