Review of Jack Russell Weinstein ’ s Adam Smith ’ s pluralism : rationality , education , and the moral sentiments

Jack Russell Weinstein's new book sets itself two major tasks: to argue that Adam Smith offers " a coherent philosophy of education that permeates his system " (p. 216) and that Smith's thinking is interestingly attuned to the very modern problem of pluralism. The first strand of argument seeks to provide a way of reading Smith that demystifies some of the remaining ambiguity across his oeuvre. The second sees in Smith an anticipation of current debates about cultural diversity and pluralism. In seeking to apply Smithian ideas in a contemporary setting Weinstein rejects the limiting over-emphasis on contextualism. His approach accepts the importance of getting Smith 'right' through historically informed readings, but denies that this is where the inquiry must cease. As Weinstein himself admits this is a difficult task (p. 9), but it is a potentially profitable approach and one which is proving increasingly attractive. Weinstein aims to examine Smith's potential contribution to contemporary debates on pluralism by offering " the first full-length investigation of Smith's philosophy of education and his theory of rationality " (p. 15). Weinstein provides an interpretation of Smith that sees his writings as characterised by the desire to provide an expansive account of human rationality. He points out Smith's attempts to distance himself from a dependence on formal logic and stresses Smith's interest in rhetoric and narrative notions of learning and rationality. The early chapters trace Smith's interaction with Mandeville, Shaftesbury, and Hutcheson, suggesting that his dissatisfaction with elements of the thought of each is combined with a facility for absorbing what is of use. There is a particularly interesting comparison of Smithian spectatorship and Shaftesbury's soliloquy (p. 44), which opens the way into the idea of rationality that runs through Weinstein's reading. Both Smith's impartial spectator and Shaftesbury's soliloquy involve