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| POSSEDUTO (se manca la collocazione vai al documento contenente) | |
| Accesso online: | https://brill.com/view/journals/nun/nun-overview.xml |
| Autore principale: | Corsi, Pietro, 1948-
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| Titolo: | The heritage of Dugald Stewart : Oxford philosophy and the method of political economy / Pietro Corsi. |
| Abstract: | This article examines the debate on the method of political economy within Anglican circles during the early decades of the nineteenth century. At Oxford, the approach to political economy was conditioned by epistemological considerations stemming from the critical evaluation of Dugald Stewart's Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind. The Oriel College intellectuals involved in the debate were worried by the rapid transformation of British society, and by the growth of sources of cultural authority independent from - if not opposed to -the Anglican Church and the Universities. The discussion on the method of political economy thus involved wider dimensions of contemporary intellectual and social life. Central to the Oxford debate was the parallel many saw existing between rational mechanics and theoretical economics. While accepting the claim to epistemological reliability made by political economists, the Oxford dons denied that the results achieved in the science could be immediately applied to social conditions: like the student of rational mechanics, the political economist had to take into account the "frictions" generated by existing social and political structures. At Cambridge, William Whewell and Richard Jones looked with apprehension to the defense of political economy by their Oxford colleagues. In the late 1820s, the Cambridge intellectual reassessed the claim by the Ricardians and the Oriel College dons that political economy followed methodological guidelines similar to the ones adopted in rational mechanics. Political economy, they claimed, was too young a discipline to be ready for an axiomatic like formulation. Laborious inductions had to be undertaken before a satisfactory theoretical system could be built.This article stresses the centrality of Dugald Stewart for the debate on the method of political economy in early nineteenth-century England. It is furthermore argued that the critical assessment of Stewart's epistemology was also crucial to the methodology of political economy developed by John Stuart Mill. The case-study discussed in this article calls for a critical re-evaluation of traditional accounts of early nineteenth-century British philosophy, and intellectual life in general |
| Visionato in: | IMSS |
| In: |  Nuncius A. 2, fasc. 2 (1987), p. 89-144 |
| Discipline: | Epistemologia e Filosofia della scienza--Persone. Economia e scienza--Studi. |
| Persone: | Stewart, Dugald, 1753-1828. |
| Luoghi: | Oxford. |
| Sudd. cronologiche: | Secolo XIX. |
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