Continuity and Continuousness: The Chain of Ideas Linking Peirce’s Synechism to Veblen’s Cumulative Causation

John Hall and Oliver Whybrow

Journal of Economic Issues, 2008, vol. 42, issue 2, 349-355

Abstract: This paper seeks to establish that a chain of ideas connects and effectively links together core thoughts advanced by philosopher Charles Peirce with economist Thorstein Veblen. Peirce introduced into 19th century American philosophical inquiry the ancient Greek understanding of continuity and continuousness — derived from “synechism.” We argue that Peirce’s understanding and use of synechism serves as the foundation for Veblen’s understanding and formation of the concept and principle of “cumulative causation.” This stands at the center of Veblen’s attempts to introduce evolutionary thinking into modern economics.

Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/00213624.2008.11507143 (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:mes:jeciss:v:42:y:2008:i:2:p:349-355

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/MJEI20

DOI: 10.1080/00213624.2008.11507143

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Economic Issues from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().