Premium
Jevons' science and his “second nature”
Author(s) -
Mazlish Bruce
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of the history of the behavioral sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.216
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1520-6696
pISSN - 0022-5061
DOI - 10.1002/1520-6696(198604)22:2<140::aid-jhbs2300220205>3.0.co;2-l
Subject(s) - realm , positive economics , natural (archaeology) , subject (documents) , value (mathematics) , adam smith , epistemology , marginal utility , value theory , economics , sociology , neoclassical economics , philosophy , law , political science , mathematics , statistics , archaeology , library science , computer science , history
Jevons contributed to a second “revolution” in economics (Adam Smith's being the first) hoping thereby to make it an “exact” science, by mathematizing the subject and substituting marginal utility theory for the labor theory of value. Yet he also conceived of economics as a moral science, and tried to defend this claim on Utilitarian grounds. An examination of his personal, or “second,” life, however, shows a deeper aspect to his aspirations, where he extrapolates from his own struggles a prescription for human behavior in the economic realm, and then treats that prescriptive behavior as based on “natural” and “assumptive” principles.