An Introduction to Karl Mittermaier and His Philosophy of Economics

2019 ◽  
Vol 139 (1) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Michael Stettler
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Philosophy Of Economics ◽  
The University ◽  
The Invisible

Karl Mittermaier lectured in the Department of Economics at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, specialising in the history and the philosophy of economics, with some of his work being published posthumously, such as “The Invisible Hand and some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study” published in this journal. He analysed economic thought and methodology from the perspective of the nominalism and realism divide, identifying the nominalist attitude in economic theory as having a pernicious effect on the clarity of our understanding of economics and economic questions.

scholarly journals Martín de Azpilcueta: The Spanish Scholastic on Usury and Time-Preference

Studia Humana ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-36
Author(s):  
Pedro J. Caranti
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Time Preference ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Preference Theory ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The University

AbstractMartín de Azpilcueta and his fellow Spanish Scholastics writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca during Spain’s Golden Age are rightly pointed to by historians of economic thought as being major contributors toward, if not outright founders of modern economic theory. Among these is the theory of time-preference for which Azpilcueta has repeatedly been given the credit for discovering. However, this discovery is a curious one given how the same man, Azpilcueta, condemned usury in general during his whole life. If Azpilcueta did in fact discover this theory and fully understand its implications, we would reasonably expect him to have questioned his support for the ban on charging an interest on a loan. This paper, therefore, challenges the claim that Azpilcueta understood and revived time-preference theory and shows how his understanding was much more nuanced, and, at times, inconsistent.

scholarly journals The Invisible Hand of God in Seeds: Jacob Schegk's Theory of Plastic Faculty

2007 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 377-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hiro Hirai
Keyword(s):  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Precise Nature ◽  
Unique Interpretation ◽  
Intellectual Context ◽  
The University ◽  
The Invisible

AbstractIn his embryological treatise De plastica seminis facultate (Strasburg, 1580), Jacob Schegk (1511-1587), professor of philosophy and medicine at the University of Tübingen, developed, through a unique interpretation of the Aristotelian embryology, a theory of the "plastic faculty" (facultas plastica), whose origin lay in the Galenic idea of the formative power. The present study analyses the precise nature of Schegk's theory, by setting it in its historical and intellectual context. It will also discuss the hitherto unappreciated Neoplatonic dimension of Schegk's notion of the soul's vehicle.

Book Reviews

2017 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 1143-1145
Keyword(s):  
British Columbia ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Market Economies ◽  
University Of British Columbia ◽  
The University ◽  
The Invisible

Mauricio Drelichman of The University of British Columbia and CIFAR reviews “The Invisible Hand? How Market Economies Have Emerged and Declined since AD 500,” by Bas van Bavel. The Econlit abstract of this book begins: “If one were to summarize van Bavel's The Invisible Hand? in one sentence, one could do worse than write that market economies carry the seeds of their own demise.”

Defense of an Open Economy Model for Post–Civil War Spain

2020 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 741-772
Author(s):  
Alfonso Expósito ◽  
Rocío Sánchez-Lissen
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Economic Policy ◽  
Civil War ◽  
Open Economy ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Spanish Economy ◽  
Economy Model ◽  
The University ◽  
Work Done

This paper analyzes the work done by the economist Manuel de Torres Martínez (1903–1960), chair of economic theory at the University of Madrid, in the defense of an open economy model for Spain, through his prologues to the translations of foreign economics texts, during his period as director in Madrid of the economics section of the Publishing Aguilar (1945–60). With his work, Torres provided a guide to those responsible for economic policy to introduce the urgent changes needed by the Spanish economy, due to its problems of external deficit, inflation, and general shortages of products. At the same time, they contributed significantly to the diffusion and updating in Spain of the economic thought of foreign authors. Many of the ideas proposed by Torres and included in these prologues became a reality with the Stabilization Plan in 1959, which meant the definitive abandonment of an economic policy characterized by autarky and intense interventionism.

Musikästhetik für den Homo oeconomicus

2013 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-120
Author(s):  
Boris Voigt
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Vocal Music ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Homo Oeconomicus ◽  
Precise Expression ◽  
The Invisible

Autonome Musik ist nur als Ware denkbar. Diese treffende Einsicht liegt bereits der Musikästhetik Adam Smiths zugrunde, darf jedoch nicht missverstanden werden als ein auf die Musik gerichteter ökonomischer Determinismus. Vielmehr unterliegt Smiths ökonomische Theorie selbst in hohem Maße einer Ästhetisierung. Beide Ebenen, Ästhetik und Ökonomie, sind strukturell aneinander gekoppelt. Besonders deutlich wird dies an Smiths musikästhetischen Überlegungen. Er unterscheidet strikt zwischen Vokal- und Instrumentalmusik, wobei die Vokalmusik durch die Kommunikation von Sympathierelationen charakterisiert ist, während die Instrumentalmusik lediglich sich selbst kommuniziert, also autonom ist und damit der Denkfigur der unsichtbaren Hand entspricht, die in der Instrumentalmusik tatsächlich ihren präzisesten Ausdruck findet.<br><br>Autonomous music is conceivable only as a commodity. This striking insight is already underlying Adam Smith’s aesthetics of music, but it should not be misunderstood as an economic determinism on music. Rather, Smith’s economic theory itself is subject of aestheticisation. Both levels, aesthetics and economics, are structurally coupled. This is particularly evident in Smith’s musical-aesthetic considerations. He distinguishes clearly between vocal and instrumental music. While vocal music is characterised by the communication of relations of sympathy, instrumental music communicates only itself and is therefore autonomous. Thus it corresponds to the figure of the invisible hand, which actually has its most precise expression in instrumental music.

Introduction: Sharecropping in history

2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 209-211 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILLIPP SCHOFIELD ◽  
BENEDITA CÂMARA
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Economic Theory ◽  
Land Tenure ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
The University

The following four articles arise from a one-day conference on ‘Sharecropping in History’, organized by Benedita Câmara and held at the University of Madeira on 8 October 2004. The papers gathered here, though revised, reflect the variety of approach evident in their first presentations at the meeting. A fifth paper, by Kyle Kauffman, on ‘Monopsony land tenure and sharecropping in Dutch South Africa, 1652–1795’ (which was not presented for publication here) also suggested that same variety, not only in terms of the inevitable spatial and temporal range but also in terms of approach. That said, a number of discrete themes emerged from the meeting, with ‘sharecropping’ a central concept, tantalizingly clear and yet fiercely resistant to close categorization, offering a number of avenues for exploration. The majority of these approaches were conditioned by, and set out to test, some of the more prevalant assumptions of economic history and economic theory with regard to sharecropping.

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