Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-27gpq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:34:59.907Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

8 - Social Philosophy and Economic Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 October 2009

Get access

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The aim of this final chapter is to sketch the broad outlines of Marshall's mature social philosophy and to identify its relationship to his mature formulation of economic doctrines. The chapter provides an epilogue to the detailed study of Marshall's early intellectual development that has occupied us until now in this book. Our business here is no longer to engage in close contextual readings, but rather to present in bare outline the key steps that took Marshall from “The Future of the Working Classes” in 1873 to the Principles of Economics – first published in 1890 but continuously revised as Marshall reorganized and redrafted his text over the course of seven subsequent editions. This chapter will argue that the development of Marshall's philosophical ideas after 1873 did not involve the derivation of completely new ideas so much as the revision of preexisting elements of his thought. Such revision, however, did direct Marshall toward a new evolutionary concept of economic organization. Together, these revised philosophical ideas and the new scientific concept of organization constituted the basic elements of that “rounded globe of knowledge” that was Marshall's mature social philosophy.

This chapter has four main sections. In the first we will discuss the seminal revision of Hegelian categories that Marshall enacted upon his return from a visit to America in 1875. As we shall see, Marshall now suggested that neither subjective nor objective freedom had yet reached its final stage of development and that their subsequent evolution was dependent on economic conditions.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×