John Stuart Mill's Essay: A Priori '

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Mill operates a theory of “fictional man”, by saying that we should abstract certain economic motives, meaning those of maximizing wealth subject to the constraints of a subsistence income and the desire for leisure, while allowing for the presence of noneconomic motives even in those areas of life that are included in the ordinary field of economics. Moreover, he emphasizes the fact that the economic field is only a part of the whole scene of human behavior. Mill’s essay characterizes political economy as “essentially an abstract science” that employs “the method a priori”. The method a priori is contrasted with the method a posteriori. “By the method a posteriori we mean that which requires, as the basis of its conclusions, not experience merely, but specific experience. By the method a priori we mean reasoning from an assumed hypothesis”. Therefore, …show more content…

Verification has an important role in determining whether the deductively drawn conclusions are applicable (Hausman, 1989). Mill’s paragraphs on the need to verify our tendencies leads to a great statement of tendency laws. In economics it is quite common to encounter tendency laws with unspecified ceteris paribus clauses, or if specified, specified only in qualitative rather than quantitative terms (Blaug, 1992). Since these tendencies are subject to various "disturbances" or "interfering causes," which cannot all be specified in advance, vague ceteris paribus clauses that allow for these disturbances will be unavoidable in formulating them. Economics explores the consequences of these established, but inexact, premises (Hausman, 1989). For the social sciences, Mill supported a. the “geometrical or abstract method” b. the “physical or concrete deductive method”, and c. the “historical or inverse deductive method”. He remained a faithful supporter of Ricardian economics (Blaug,

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