Description
This open access book deals with the ideas and work of William Stanley Jevons (1835 1882). Jevons is now mainly known as an economist. His revision of the theory of value and the definition of the principle of decreasing marginal utility gained him a prominent place in the history of economic thought. However, Jevons s oeuvre goes far beyond his contribution to economics. He was a logician and a natural scientist. Jevons was always a godly man, and his religious beliefs, far from being a merely private aspect, were highly influential in his works. He was interested in evolutionism, and especially in Herbert Spencer s philosophy. This book explores Jevons s work as a Victorian social scientist, who was committed to understand the natural laws regulating human society in order to improve it. The book explores several different facets of Jevons's thought, such as: his religious views, in connection with scientific method and study of probability; the link between nineteenth-century Unitarianism, the branch of Dissent of which Jevons was part, and his moral and political thought; the role played by Herbert Spencer s thought in Jevons s political philosophy; the relevance of his religious views, philosophy of logic, moral and political thought to his economic theory.
1. The Role of the Victorian Social Scientist.- 2. Correct Reasoners: A Logic for Unifying Science and Guiding Ordinary Reasoning.- 3. A Being Darkly Wise : Probability and the Finite Human Mind.- 4. Reconciling Science and Religion: Jevons as a Natural Theologist.- 5. Useful Knowledge: Determinism, Scientific Studies and Social Reform.- 6. Humans After All: Moral Reform, Unitarianism and Free Will.- 7. In The Name of the Salus Populi: Jevons s Political Thought, Utilitarianism and Evolutionism.- 8. What the Science of Political Economy Was For: Political Economists and Society.- 9. The Task and Prize of the Social Sciences.
Eleonora Buono currently is post-doctoral fellow at the University of Padova. She is a historian of political thought focused on Victorian Britain and has published in several international journals, such as History of Political Thought and The Review of Politics.
