Early modern · 1723–1790
Who influenced Adam Smith?
Influences and legacy
Moral sentimentalist who described the invisible hand of markets — and their dangers.
Adam Smith was influenced by David Hume, and went on to influence Karl Marx. That is 2 lines of the 448 documented lines of influence between the 279 thinkers on this map.
Read on Wikipedia Portrait: Unknown author, Public domain See the whole map
Who was Adam Smith?
Born in Kirkcaldy in Fife, Adam Smith studied at Glasgow and Oxford, lectured in Edinburgh, became a friend of David Hume and taught moral philosophy at Glasgow, where he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). A post as a tutor later took him around Europe to meet the leading minds of his day.
His Wealth of Nations (1776) answered mercantilism, the policy of guarding national markets by cutting imports and pushing exports, and laid the foundations of classical free-market economics. It explains wealth through natural, social and economic causes rather than divine will, develops the division of labour and absolute advantage, and shows how self-interest and competition can produce prosperity. Many call him the father of economics.
Summarized from the lead of the Wikipedia article.
Who influenced Adam Smith?
1 direct influence on this map, earliest first.
- David Hume 1711–1776
Who did Adam Smith influence?
1 thinker on this map draws directly on Adam Smith.
- Karl Marx 1818–1883
The line of teachers behind Adam Smith
The longest documented line of influence ending at Adam Smith runs 18 generations back, to Thales of Miletus.
Two steps away from Adam Smith
Indirect influences
- Through David Hume: Michel de Montaigne, John Locke, Nicolas Malebranche, Pierre Bayle, George Berkeley
The second generation
Contemporaries of Adam Smith
Thinkers on this map born within 25 years of Adam Smith, with no direct line between them.
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
- Hryhorii Skovoroda 1722–1794
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729–1781
- Moses Mendelssohn 1729–1786
- Johann Georg Hamann 1730–1788
- Étienne Bonnot de Condillac 1714–1780
- Denis Diderot 1713–1784
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
Adam Smith by the numbers
- Direct influences
- 1
- Direct followers
- 1
- Thinkers upstream
- 61
- Thinkers downstream
- 24
- Wikipedia languages
- 170 — #4 of 36 among early modern philosophers
- Card rarity
- Legendary
Questions about Adam Smith
- Who influenced Adam Smith?
- David Hume.
- Who did Adam Smith influence?
- Karl Marx.
- When did Adam Smith live?
- 1723–1790. The map files Adam Smith under the early modern period.
- How rare is the Adam Smith card?
- Wikipedia carries an article on Adam Smith in 170 languages, which makes it a Legendary card. Legendary starts at 100 languages, Epic at 50 and Rare at 25.
More early modern philosophers
- René Descartes 1596–1650
- Immanuel Kant 1724–1804
- Voltaire 1694–1778
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau 1712–1778
- Niccolò Machiavelli 1469–1527
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 1646–1716
- John Locke 1632–1704
- Blaise Pascal 1623–1662