Mechanical Rationality: Jevons and the Making of Economic Man

An Instrument Can Make a Science: Jevons's Balancing Acts in Economics

“…This is no doubt because economists don't think of their subject as an "allied branch" of relates to this issue of functional form and is therefore less of a digression than suggested in Creedy 1986. See also White 1995 and chapter 6 of my thesis (Maas 2001). chemistry. Jevons did.…”

Foundations for New Economic Thinking

“…The ambiguity surrounding the 'stock' of labour or its services has not been resolved; therefore it must be the case that Walrasian neoclassical economics commands support on grounds other than perfect logical consistency, which grounds are better analysed in Kuhnian terms. 8 It can be argued, for example, that formalism in economics arose from a belief that nature is entirely mechanical and closed (see Maas, 1999, who made this argument with respect to Jevons). Yet if that type of belief is no longer current, then the methodology of formalism is not justified by ontology.…”

Equilibrium and Evolution

“…This legacy is perhaps most effectively illustrated through observation of the contrasting perceptions on psychology adopted by Marshall and his prominent contemporary, Jevons. As writers such as Michael White (1994) and Harro Maas (1999) have documented, Jevons had drawn upon physiological psychology in order to present 'natural laws' of economic behaviour in terms of nervous reflexes. Jevons' interpretation and application of these principles led him to embrace what could be termed a mechanical model of the mind, something along the lines of Babbage's 'calculating machines'.…”