Download or read book The Rhetoric of Tenses in Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations written by Hye-Joon Yoon and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2017-11-13 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rhetoric of Tenses in Adam Smith’s “The Wealth of Nations” examines the tenses of the predicates in the famous and typical passages of the monumental work to explore the intricacies of the rhetoric and argument they support, paying particular attention to the question of temporality. Smith’s subtle modulation of language attests to his reluctance to offer a mere theory of economics and to his refusal to ignore the complicated challenges history and actuality offer to his beliefs in the natural system of liberty. The theoretical frame of the book is derived from the grammarians of Smith’s age, in particular James Harris. The supple interdisciplinary approach of this book invites literary and publishing histories to converse with intellectual history.