A Critique of Economics, Doctrinal and Methodological |
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Adam Smith analysis aspects capital catallactics causal cause changes classes complex concepts Conrad's Jahrb consumption correlation deduction definite degree distinct Distribution duction dynamic economic methodology economics economists edit elements ence epistemology ethics exchange exist experimental factors facts feelings Formal Logic freedom of contract frequencies Grammar of Science hedonism hedonistic human nature Ibidem ideas income induction inference inquiry interest J. S. Mill labor law and causation law of price laws of nature less logicians magnitudes margin Marginists matter means measurements ment method methodology mind monism natural science nomics norms objective philosophy physical pleasure premises principles problem production profits prove psychic psychology qualitative quantitative question reason regularity relations relative scientific Scientific Method scientist sensationalism sensations sense shares social sciences standard statics statistical supply things thought tion tive tonian units Utilitarian utility variables viewpoint wants wealth
Popular passages
Page 244 - When two conditions are equally necessary for producing the effect at all, it is unmeaning to say that so much of it is produced by one and so much by the other ; it is like attempting to decide which half of a pair of scissors has most to do in the act of cutting ; or which of the factors, five and six, contributes most to the production of thirty.
Page 167 - Archimedes stated that a body immersed in a fluid is buoyed up by a force equal to the weight of the displaced fluid. By means of this principle, known as Archimedes' principle, he determined that a crown was not pure gold.
Page 70 - Desire is then a. very complex emotional system, which Includes actually or potentially the six prospective emotions of hope, anxiety, disappointment, despondency, confidence, and despair
Page 173 - There is more meaning in the statement that man gives laws to Nature than in its converse that Nature gives laws to man.
Page 6 - This difference between the case in which the joint effect of causes is the sum of their separate effects and the case in which it is heterogeneous to them — between laws which work together without alteration, and laws which, when called upon to work together, cease and give place to others — is one of the fundamental distinctions in nature. The former case, that of the composition of causes, is the general one; the other is always special and exceptional.
Page 181 - To us, then, a cause is not to be distinguished from the group of positive or negative conditions which, with more or less probability, precede an event.
Page 230 - This method consists in breaking up a statistical series, according to appropriate principles, into a number of sub-series, with a view to analysing and measuring, not merely the frequency of a given character over the aggregate series, but the stability of this frequency amongst the subseries...
Page 224 - It is this conception of correlation between two occurrences embracing all relationships from absolute independence to complete dependence, which is the wider category by which we have to replace the old idea of causation.
Page 46 - Not only do simple ideas, by strong association, run together, and form complex ideas : but a complex idea, when the simple ideas which compose it have become so consolidated that it always appears as one, is capable of entering into combinations with other ideas, both simple and complex. Thus two complex ideas may be united together, by a strong association, and coalesce into one, in the same manner as two or more simple ideas coalesce into one. This union of two complex ideas into one, Dr. Hartley...
Page 44 - Our ideas spring up, or exist, in the order in which the sensations existed, of which they are the copies." 2 Not only is the order in which the more complex mental phenomena follow or accompany one another reducible, by an analysis similar in kind to the Newtonian, to a comparatively small number of laws of succession among simpler facts, connected as cause and " See for instance Jevons, WS, "Theory of Political Economy,