Rick Marriner
Tuesday
Homework 2


B. Classical Thought

B. Identifications

1. David Hume (1711-1776) Works: A Treatise of Human Nature (1739-40), Political Discourses (1752), The Natural History of Religion (1755), History of England (1754-62). He was a Scottish philosopher, historian, and essayist. Hume is the most influential thoroughgoing naturalist in modern philosophy, and a pivotal figure of the Enlightenment. Hume advocated various forms of moderate or mitigated skepticism. He was a relentless critic of metaphysics and religion.

2. Adam Smith (1723-1790) Works: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. He was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland and was a political economist and philosopher. In 1751 Smith was appointed professor of logic at Glasgow university, transferring in 1752 to the chair of moral philosophy. His studies covered the field of ethics, rhetoric, jurisprudence and political economy.

3. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) Works: Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) and Principles of Political Economy. His doctrine is founded on the idea that population grows exponentially (or geometrically) and thus faster than the arithmetic growth of resources. In consequence humanity is headed toward famine. He distinguished two kinds of ways of returning to equilibrium -- destructive ways (war and famine) and voluntary ways (decreasing the birth rate). His ideas influenced the work of Charles Darwin on natural selection and provoked a lively debate that continues to this day.

4. David Ricardo (1772-1823) Works: On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, (1817). Plan for the Establishment of a National Bank (1824); Proposals for an Economical and Secure Currency; with Observations on the profits of the Bank of England (1816) David Ricardo maintained that the economy generally moves towards a standstill. He was a stock broker and capitalist/landowner as well as a politician. Although he was a bit gloomy, he was still loved by many in the government who used his ideas to get their way!

5. John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) Works: On Liberty (1859) Principles of Political Economy (1848), Utilitarianism (1863). He was a British philosopher and economist. He received a rigorous education under his father, James Mill, who co-founded utilitarianism. John Stuart Mill's own philosophy, influenced by his wife, Harriet Taylor, developed into a more humanitarian doctrine than that of utilitarianism's founders: he was sympathetic to socialism, and was a strong advocate of women's rights.

6. Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) Works (amongst others): Communist Manifesto (1848): Principles of Communism .(1847) The son of a lawyer, he studied law and philosophy; he rejected the idealism of Hegel but was influenced by Feuerbach and Hess. After the Revolutions of 1848, Marx lived in London, earning some money as a correspondent for the New York Tribune.

C. Short Essay Questions and Answers

7. The Visions of Utopian Socialists:
Question: "What effects did John Stuarts Mill’s wife have on his work?"
Answer: John Stuart Mill’s Wife Harriet Taylor completed his personality. She was the emotional side of his life. Having grown up in the cold world of books and rigorous studies, she was his eye opener to women’s rights and more generally mankind’s rights.

8. The Inexorable System of Karl Marx
Question: "What was Engels’ effect on Karl Marx?"
Answer: Being both conceptually minded opposites and physical opposites, Engels and Marx made quite a pair. Engels’ quick and easy solving mind was creative enough to supply the slow and meticulous German scholar Marx with ideas and concepts with which to tie his theories of society together. It is said that where Engels provided breadth Marx provided the depth.

9. The Victorian World and the Underworld of Economics
Question: "Comment on the Marshall’s theory of time."
Answer: Alfred Marshall’s analytical mind provided an illuminating insight into everything that he endeavored to study. However, the reason that he is not as well known as he might have been comes from his concept of time. Specifically, his definition of time was one of "abstract time". A world that has a loose "now" or "then", and can be played and replayed as in so many of his models. His notions of equilibrium were not tied to the progression of reality, not that what he professed was entirely incorrect, but that history rarely moved in such a smooth curve.

10. The Savage Society of Thorstein Veblen
Question: "What were Veblen’s views on Victorian Economic theory?"
Answer: His views ridiculed the "flattering fictions" that forced society to fit into neatly devised structures. Society was not a "fleshless and bloodless framework". These rationalizations clearly did not fit the savage creature that he saw when he looked at mankind.