Guerra-Pujol and Alcouffe on Adam Smith in the City of Light @ProfessorPujol

F. E. Guerra-Pujol, Pontifical Catholic University of Puerto Rico; University of Central Florida, and Alain Alcouffe, University of Toulouse-Capitole, have published Adam Smith in the City of Light. Here is the abstract.

The general outline of Adam Smith’s travels in Europe has been retold many times, but little is known about his comings and goings in Paris. What we can say, however, is that the Scottish philosopher’s time in the City of Light marks an important turning point in his personal and intellectual life. He began his Paris sojourns by permanently resigning his professorship. He concluded them by mourning the death of one of the teenage boys who had been entrusted to his care. In all, Adam Smith made three separate visits to Paris. His first visit occurred in February of 1764 and lasted less than a fortnight (Rae 1895, p. 174; Ross 2010, p. 210), but his second and third stays lasted much longer--from February to July 1766 and then from September to October 1766--interrupted only by a short interlude in Compiègne in August. Moreover, several important events took place in Paris during all three of Adam Smith’s stays in the City of Light, dramatic episodes that a keen observer of the world like Smith must have taken notice of, including the intense debate from May 1763 to April 1764 over taxation and royal finances that took Paris by storm the political showdown known as the "séance de la flagellation", when Louis XV made a rare appearance in the French capital to scold the members of the legislature at a session of the Parlement de Paris on 3 March 1766; and the appearance of David Hume’s reply to Rousseau, which was published in Paris on 21 October 1766. Accordingly, Part 1 of this work revisits Smith’s first foray in Paris in February 1764. Next, Part 2 explores Smith’s second sojourn in Paris, from February to July 1766. Part 3 then concludes by revisiting Smith’s last days in Paris.

Download the article from SSRN at the link.