*WORKSHOP CALL FOR PAPERS*



THE WORDS OF EXCHANGE



ADAM SMITH AND THE DEBATES ON PRIMITIVE SOCIETIES AND THE ORIGIN OF L
ANGUAGES



*17 June 2024 / Sorbonne University*

*Paris – France*



The 16th-century European encounter with a variety of societies and
languages in the world led to a general debate about their origins,
especially during the 18th century. Controversies broke out in many
European countries about speech and the human mind, ‘wild’ languages,
sociability and the difference between human beings and animals. Were the
newly encountered peoples of Americas proof of the primitive and rude state
of human beings? Were they the evidence of human nature uncorrupted by the
evils of civilization? Were individuals living in these societies without
government and private property unsociable and in a perpetual state of war,
or were they able to exchange? Was the evidence of diversity in morals and
social practices a challenge to the idea of a universal human nature? Was
language a fruit of society or its origin? The Scottish thinkers placed
particular emphasis on the relationship between living conditions,
morality, and sociability, as well as on the idea that language grew
alongside the historical development of mankind, instead of being a divine
gift or a product of human design. For this reason, they were particularly
interested in the ‘primitive’ forms of society and speech.



In 1767, Adam Smith published the essay *Considerations concerning the
First Formation of Languages*. Precisely in the same period, he was turning
his attention more deeply to political economy and beginning to write
the *Wealth
of Nations*, where speech was proposed as the possible origin of his famous
‘propensity to exchange’. In his *Lectures on Jurisprudence*, Smith was
even clearer and linked propensity to exchange to the capacity of
persuading others, whose moral foundation can be found in his *Theory of
Moral Sentiments*.



Even if it is recognised as a key issue for political economy in its early
days, there are many open questions concerning the connection between
sociability, language, and exchange in Smith’s thought. What precisely is
the role of feelings, speech, and persuasion in economic exchange? Under
what conditions can exchange be regarded as a communicative and non-violent
interaction? Does Smith’s conjectural history of exchange in the “rude
state of society” allow a new understanding of his theory of value?



The workshop is open to contributions by scholars and PhD students that
intend to consider Smith’s thought in the historical and theoretical depth
of the multidisciplinary debates in which he participated, as well as to
contributions that discuss other thinkers and works related to the
eighteenth-century debate on the origins and history of societies and
languages.



The workshop will feature the presence of Maria Pia Paganelli (Trinity
University), Jennifer Pitts (University of Chicago), Michelle Schwarze
(University of Wisconsin-Madison), Silvia Sebastiani (EHESS, Paris) and
Marco E. L. Guidi (Università di Pisa) as discussants.



Papers may focus on, but are not limited to, the following topics:

- Smith on speech, persuasion, and exchange

- Scottish conjectural history and the inquiry into ‘primitive’ societies

- The debate on primitive societies and the constitution of political
economy as a science

- The role of language in human sociability in the French and Scottish
Enlightenment

- Hobbes, Locke, Mandeville, Hume, Condillac, Rousseau, Ferguson, Turgot
and Smith on the origins of languages and societies

- Maupertuis, Formey, Herder and the debate around the Berlin Academy of
Sciences

- Travel narratives (Charlevoix, Lafitau, etc.) and the representations of
‘primitive’ societies and languages

- Smith on colonialism

*Please reply with an abstract of up to 200 words to Michele Bee (*
[log in to unmask]*) by 31 March 2024*.



*The workshop is organised in the framework of the Marie Curie project
‘Rethinking Exchange’ (Department of Economics, University of Salento) in
collaboration with PHARE (Sorbonne University), LexEcon project (Department
of Economics and Management, University of Pisa) and the International Adam
Smith Society (IASS).*



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