Adam Smith on the Effectual Truth of Imagination

Abstract

Machiavelli redirects attention away from classical and Christian imagination toward the “effectual truth.” He turns imagination away from what is past and transcendent so it attends to what is possible. I argue this logic of the imagination is one of the important operative elements in the work of Adam Smith. Smith’s understanding and application of the imagination is key to his founding the “commercial society,” for the sake of “universal opulence,” as well as to the moral sensibilities he claims are bound to the new political economy. Smith’s project contributes to the commercialization of the imagination–an intentional effort to restore imagination to its properly useful place in the wake of the Machiavellian imaginary redirection, while likewise mitigating the worst, or negative, effects of “Machiavellianism.” The effectual truth of the imagination, according to Smith, is its Machiavellian focus on “the things of the world” without falling entirely into Machiavellli’s teaching to “learn to be able not to be good.”