Adam Smith on uncertainty and security. Part 1.

Abstract

The subject of the article is the study of Adam Smith's conceptual ideas about uncertainty and security and their relationship. Methods of conceptual analysis are used in two versions. The presentist approach aims to interpret Smith's ideas about uncertainty in terms of modern concepts (fundamental and epistemological uncertainty and their forms). The antiquarian approach aims to explain the features of Smith's concepts in the context of the theological, philosophical ideas and methodological ideas he shared. The analysis is used in presentist and antiquarian variants. The first part of the article shows that Smith uses several concepts of uncertainty. One of them corresponds to the modern idea of epistemic uncertainty. Smith also develops an original concept of ambiguity, which, in the author's opinion, can be most constructively understood from the standpoint of a generalized version of Niels Bohr's principle of complementarity. However, in Smith's system this type of uncertainty is of fundamental importance and is associated with the feeling of sympathy. The third part of the article examines the influence of theological ideas on Smith's ideas about uncertainty. The peculiarities of scientists' interpretation of the uncertainty of the future are explored. The second part also examines selected conceptual relationships between uncertainty and security. In Smith's theoretical system, the reduction of uncertainty plays a special role in ensuring the long-term survival of society (ensuring security - in the presentist interpretation). Smith associates it with following the rules of the virtue of justice, which have the greatest certainty and, functioning like the rules of grammar, perform the function of creating order.