ABSTRACT
This chapter examines two questions: What is Adam Smith’s explanation for the origin of the division of labor? What is the ontological and epistemological nature of his explanation? It turns out that the conventional explanation is not only deeper than is customarily acknowledged but is accompanied by no less than four alternative explanations. Of the total of five, three are singularly or predominantly “economic” in nature, and two are clearly non-economic. That Smith would provide non-economic answers to a question to which an economic answer(s) is given should be no surprise, inasmuch as his is a synoptic and synthetic system of social-science analysis (Samuels 1977; Skinner 1979); the economics-laden Wealth of Nations is inseparable from the other spheres of life and from his other works. What may be surprising to some scholars1 is a still further explanation that fits Smith’s own understanding of what he as a philosopher was doing. This sixth explanation emphasizes both mind-satisfying belief and truth, but especially the former. For Smith, the purpose or rationale of social-science analysis was very different from, or more complicated than, that voiced by present-day economists.
