and nicholas phillipson's hands he becomes a social scientist. a brilliant mind trying to understand what institutions are that leads to human happiness and human flourishing, combined with the generosity of soul that smith had as a person silly committed to using his discoveries to help remove obstacles to the well being of the common man. it is indeed an inspiring story. i say that in all sincerity. it's skillful telling in this book justifying that you read it. since part of my duty as a commentor is to point out and criticize the bulk of the book, i spent some time looking for fault as i work through phillipson to book their consent report i had a hard time finding any. this is partly due to the fact that phillipson's interpretations of smith's ideas are very close to my own. so that is a discovery guys are happy to make. still for the sake of discussion with a point out a few things, i will call and criticisms, maybe gentle suggestions. first, as a philosopher i feel duty-bound to raise the thorny issue of the so-called is odd problem. this

our author today and our first speaker, nicholas phillipson, was an undergraduate at aberdeen and cambridge university, graduated with a ph.d. from cambridge in 1967. he was appointed lecturer in history at edinborough and subsequently appointed senior lecturer and reader. he retired from final employment in 2004 and was appointed honorary research fellow. he has held research appointments at a number of leading universities in the united states and europe. his research interests have focused on the cultural and intellectual history of early/modern and modern scotland with a particular interest in the his -- history of scottish enlightenment. he is co-directer of the project on the science of man in scotland, and he is a founder/editor of a new journal, "modern intellectual history," published by cambridge university press. he is past president of the 18th century scottish studies society, and he has lectured extensively on his topic today in both europe and the united states. now, i hasten to add to finish the intro and get to our speaker, one reviewer of this book has remarked that the bo