Rereading Adam Smith’s ‘theory of history’: An alternative perspective of Smith’s historising

Abstract Adam Smith is considered as the most influential figure of the Scottish Enlightenment, and an active member of the Scottish Historical School. Naturally, therefore, history, which was a distinctive element of the Scottish Enlightenment, is rendered as a structural feature of his social philosophy and his political economy. Traditionally, much of the study of Smith’s ‘theory of history’, as a distinct intellectual enterprise, is dominated by discussions over Dugald Stewart’s ‘theoretical or conjectural’ mode of explanation. Against this tide, the purpose of this paper is to develop an alternative perspective concerning new lines of inquiry in the understanding of Smith’s theory of history. Thus, we attempt to delineate Smith’s theory of history by proposing a three-level analytical scheme: namely the methodological, theoretical and narrative level of analysis. The effect of each higher level on the one beneath signifies a process from the more abstract methodological and theoretical reasoning to concrete historical reality.