The concept of modernity emerged in the late 17th and 18th centuries, and since then "reason" has illuminated "darkness". The 18th century was the century of reason, the century of science, and the century of enlightenment. It is called the "Century of Enlightenment" because people discovered the god of reason, replaced the god of religion with the god of reason, and from then on, "the truth triumphed and mankind was saved!" People changed from what Kant called "the immaturity of the citizen" to a state of maturity. It is the "century of reason" because it extends reason to the dark areas of the human heart—where prejudice, error, superstition, fanaticism, and enslavement have long been occupied. Reason is the kingdom of eternal truth, and the spiritual, material, national, and social worlds are all to be explored by reason and judged by reason. The 18th century was a century of shining stars for mankind, with a large number of talented people such as David Hume (philosopher), Adam Smith (economist), Rousseau (philosopher), Kant (philosopher) and so on. Adam Smith, the founder of economics, was a shining star of the 18th-century Enlightenment. However, it is worth pointing out that Adam Smith belongs to the "Scottish Enlightenment" faction of the Enlightenment, which is different from the "French Enlightenment".
Adam Smith was born on 5 June 1723 in Kokkady, a small town of only about 1,500 people in Fifeshire, Scotland, and in October 1737, at the age of 14 Smith entered the University of Glasgow (4 years) and after graduation received a scholarship to continue his studies at Oxford University (6 years). In 1748 the young Smith was hired as a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh, and after three years at the University of Edinburgh, in 1751 Smith was hired at the University of Glasgow as Professor of Logic Philosophy and Professor of Moral Philosophy (teaching topics including theological ethics, jurisprudence, political science, economics, etc.). Taught at the University of Glasgow for 13 years (1751-1764). Smith was an excellent university teacher. In submitting his resignation to the University, the University Council expressed his deep regret to Smith, praising Himer smith for his "extraordinary integrity, amiable qualities, extraordinary talent, outstanding talents, and tireless spirit in sincerely imparting useful knowledge." While teaching at the University of Glasgow, Smith published his famous Treatise on Moral Sentiments (first edition) in 1759. Smith then accepted the invitation of the then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas, to study in Europe (mainly France) for two and a half years as a personal tutor to His second wife and the son born to her ex-husband, the Duke of Buckler. Smith was thus paid an annual salary of £300 and a lifetime annuity of £300 per year after the end of his private teaching assignment. Sometime in 1766, Smith ended his position as a private tutor to the Duke of Buckler, and spent the rest of his time writing the Wealth of Nations until the publication of the first edition of The Wealth of Nations in 1776. In 1777 Smith was appointed Customs Commissioner of Sogra by Prime Minister North, with an annual salary of £600. During his tenure as Customs Commissioner, administrative matters occupied a great deal of Smith's time, but he continued to revise and supplement his two books, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, which were revised to the sixth edition and The Wealth of Nations to the fifth edition. Smith died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790. Just a few days before Smith's death, Smith was still worried about the children of his old friend Karen, who had just died, and entrusted them to the care of the Duke of Buckler.
Smith's economic ideas are epitomized in The Wealth of Nations. Jesse Norman, a biographer of Edmund Burke and Adam Smith, commented that together Smith and Burke marked an extraordinary moment in world history, when the contours of modern politics and economics first appeared, analyzed in depth and publicly interpreted. Edmund Burke was the first great theoretician of modern political parties and representative government; Adam Smith was the first thinker to place the concept of the market at the center of political economy and economics, and to place the concept of norms at the center of sociology. Burke is our pivot to political modernity; Smith is our pivot to economic modernity and social modernity. (The author is a professor at Capital University of Economics and Business, and a doctoral supervisor)
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Editor: Wang Yue