The classical age of economics was marked by an intense interest in scientific methodology. It was, moreover, an age when science and philosophy were not yet distinct disciplines, and the educated were polymaths. The classical economists were acutely aware that suitable methods had to be developed before a body of knowledge could be deemed philosophical or scientific. They did not formulate their methodological views in a vacuum, but drew on a rich collection of philosophical ideas. Consequently, issues of methodology were at the heart of political economys rise as a science. The classical era of economics opened under Adam Smith with political economy understood as an integral part of a broader system of social philosophy; by the end, it had emerged via J. S. Mill as a "separate science", albeit one still inextricably tied to the other social sciences and to ethics.The Rise of Political Economy as a Science opens with a review of the epistemological ideas that inspired the classical economists: the methodological principles of Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Newton, Locke, Hume, Stewart, Herschel, and Whewell. These principles were influential not just in the development of political economy, but in the rise of social science in general. The author then examines science in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain, with a particular emphasis on the all-important concept of induction. Having laid the necessary groundwork, she proceeds to a history and analysis of the methodologies of four economist-philosophers--Adam Smith, Robert Malthus, David Ricardo, and J. S. Mill--selected for their historical importance as founders of economics and for their common Scottish intellectual lineage. Concluding remarks put classical methodology into a broader historical perspective.
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About the Author
Deborah A. Redman is the author of Economics and the Philosophy of Science: A Reader's Guide to Rational Expectations and Economic Methodology.
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The subtitle, Methodology and the Classical Economists, is somewhat misleading, for I make no attempt to offer a comprehensive analysis of the methodological positions of the British classical economists. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
plebian induction, arts thereto belonging, respective citation, inverse deductive method, bullion controversy, moral algebra, clock metaphor, clock analogy, word induction, plain method, economic methodology, political arithmetic, civil philosophy, connecting principles, bold hypotheses Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Royal Society, Adam Smith, System of Logic, Isaac Newton, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Rules of Reasoning, David Ricardo, Edinburgh Review, William Whewell, Treatise of Human Nature, Corn Laws, Karl Popper, Robert Malthus, Colin Maclaurin, Robert Boyle, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Francis Bacon, Henry Pemberton, John Clarke, Newton's Principia, Quarterly Review, John Locke New!
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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
The subtitle, Methodology and the Classical Economists, is somewhat misleading, for I make no attempt to offer a comprehensive analysis of the methodological positions of the British classical economists. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
plebian induction, arts thereto belonging, respective citation, inverse deductive method, bullion controversy, moral algebra, clock metaphor, clock analogy, word induction, plain method, economic methodology, political arithmetic, civil philosophy, connecting principles, bold hypotheses Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Royal Society, Adam Smith, System of Logic, Isaac Newton, James Mill, John Stuart Mill, David Hume, Dugald Stewart, Rules of Reasoning, David Ricardo, Edinburgh Review, William Whewell, Treatise of Human Nature, Corn Laws, Karl Popper, Robert Malthus, Colin Maclaurin, Robert Boyle, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Francis Bacon, Henry Pemberton, John Clarke, Newton's Principia, Quarterly Review, John Locke New!
Books on Related Topics | Concordance | Text Stats Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Surprise Me!
Citations (learn more)
4
books
cite this book:
- The Power of the Passive Self in English Literature, 1640-1770 by Scott Paul Gordon in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
- Statisticians of the Centuries by P. Crepel on page 114
- Financial Globalization and the Opening of the Japanese Economy by James P. Malcolm in Back Matter
- The Ethics And Economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (Alternative Voices in Contemporary Economics) by Karl Widerquist on page 52
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