The Music of Social Intercourse: Synchrony in Adam Smith

Abstract

Adam Smith often used musical and synchronous figures of speech to convey the notion of sympathy, as when our sentiments “keep time together.” In this way Smith explored social cooperation or “harmony.” Smith’s emphasis on synchrony in treating the social ecology of moral sentiments provides a theoretical touchstone for recent psychology experiments showing that synchronous experience conduces to cooperation. In this paper we report the results of a word search on Smith’s use of synchronous figures in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and explore the important places that synchronous language holds in his works. We relate these matters to the issue of the relationship between The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations, and to solidarity and group selection in evolution. Meanwhile, we note that Smith was well aware of society’s inherent disharmonies.

Keywords: Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments, Synchrony, Coordination, Sentiments, Cooperation