EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

Common Sense: A Middle Way between Formalism and Post-Structuralism?

John Davis

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1999, vol. 23, issue 4, 503-15

Abstract: John Coates's The Claims of Common Sense argues that common-sense philosophy is central to Cambridge economics and philosophy, and represents a viable middle way between formalism and post-structuralism. This paper concentrates on the opposition between common sense and formalism. The latter is explained in terms of Quine's formal semantics and neoclassical axiomatic choice theory, which share a critique of ordinary language, a commitment to logical determinacy, a functionalist view of mind, and the idea of ontology driven by logic. Coates's common-sense Cambridge alternative is explained in terms of Wittgenstein's and Keynes's views on vagueness. Copyright 1999 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1999
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

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:oup:cambje:v:23:y:1999:i:4:p:503-15

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-22
Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:23:y:1999:i:4:p:503-15