The ontology of Sir William Petty's political arithmetic. Issue 5 (3rd September 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- The ontology of Sir William Petty's political arithmetic. Issue 5 (3rd September 2019)
- Main Title:
- The ontology of Sir William Petty's political arithmetic
- Authors:
- Sivado, Akos
- Abstract:
- Abstract: The method of political arithmetic elaborated by William Petty in the 17 th century is usually taken to be an instrument of better governance aimed at practical utility, and lacking any theoretical support in a natural philosophical sense. This paper argues otherwise by showing how Petty's scarce discussions of First Principles and mechanical philosophy could be viewed as constituting a theoretical background against which his insistence on using arithmetic to account for social phenomena could be interpreted more charitably. Reconstructing Petty's philosophy also helps answering why the accuracy of his numbers was not of primary importance for his scientific projects.
- Is Part Of:
- European journal of the history of economic thought. Volume 26:Issue 5(2019)
- Journal:
- European journal of the history of economic thought
- Issue:
- Volume 26:Issue 5(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 26, Issue 5 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 26
- Issue:
- 5
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0026-0005-0000
- Page Start:
- 1003
- Page End:
- 1026
- Publication Date:
- 2019-09-03
- Subjects:
- William Petty -- political arithmetic -- seventeenth-century -- atomism -- natural philosophy
B1
Economic history -- Periodicals
330.94 - Journal URLs:
- http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/REJH20/current ↗
http://www.tandfonline.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1080/09672567.2019.1626463 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0967-2567
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 3829.729950
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 12159.xml