On Ricardo's Method: The Scottish Connection Considered

Christophe Depoortère
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Christophe Depoortère

History of Political Economy, 2008, vol. 40, issue 1, 73-110

Abstract: Historians of economic thought who try to connect Ricardo's method with a philosophy generally focus on associationism and pay no attention to Dugald Stewart's influence. In point of fact, Ricardo's method can be connected with Stewart's teaching through his connection with James Mill and Francis Horner. Moreover, the difference between practical and scientific knowledge which is, according Stewart, a difference in the use of abstraction, coincides with Ricardo's distinction between questions of facts and of principles. This connection, which appears in Ricardo's work, brings into question the common view of Ricardo's method as a hypothetical one and leads to consider the role of abstraction as a crucial one.

Keywords: Drugald Stewart; David Ricardo (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hope.dukejournals.org/content/40/1/73.full.pdf+html link to full text (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hop:hopeec:v:40:y:2008:i:1:p:73-110

Access Statistics for this article

History of Political Economy is currently edited by Kevin D. Hoover

More articles in History of Political Economy from Duke University Press Duke University Press 905 W. Main Street, Suite 18B Durham, NC 27701.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Center for the History of Political Economy Webmaster ().