Pareto was Walras\u2019s successor as the Chair of Economics at the University of Lausanne. However, other than their shared belief that the use of mathematics can advance the quality of research in economics, their economics and the ontological and epistemological assumptions of their work are significantly different. Indeed, contrary to Walras, Pareto believes that the inclusion of ethical values and social norms hinders the progress of science, so they should play no role in economics. Thus, given the central role of normative considerations in Walras\u2019s model, Pareto characterizes the latter as unscientific and metaphysical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite an impressive secondary literature on Pareto, the ontological and epistemological foundations of his economic and social thought have not been studied in detail. In this second part of our project, our first step will be to examine Pareto\u2019s version of positivism and his position regarding the role of science, the scientific method, and the ontological differences or similarities between nature and society. Pareto argues that taking natural science and mechanical reasoning as the model for social science can facilitate the latter\u2019s progress, allowing it to free itself from normative considerations. However, the post-positivist history and philosophy of science have shown that even in physics and natural science, ethical and social considerations play a prominent role in the choice of research questions and can lead to the emergence of entirely different theoretical models. Given the presence of ethical and social considerations in natural science, taking them, as Pareto does, as the model of non-normative scientific work loses much of its appeal. Therefore, we aim to study Pareto\u2019s writings to discover the ontological and epistemological underpinnings, beyond his analogy between economics and natural science, of his value-free and norm-free ideal of science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After reconstructing the ontological, epistemological, and methodological foundations of Pareto\u2019s writings, we will examine, in our second step, the often-implicit role of ethical values and social norms in his economic theories. While Pareto\u2019s role in the ordinalist revolution, and the role of the latter in the positivist turn in economics, have received much attention, we still have no systematic appraisal of the role of ethical and social considerations in other elements of his economic thought. Other than unearthing the presence of normative considerations in Pareto\u2019s economics, especially regarding the distribution of wealth, our study aims to propose a systematic investigation of the relationship between his economic thought and 1) his sociology and 2) welfare economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regarding the relationship between Pareto\u2019s economics and sociology, while normative considerations are implicitly present in the former, their presence in the latter is utterly explicit. Ingrao and Isreal (1990, p. 136) have argued that Pareto\u2019s sociological writings aim to \u2018correct the acknowledged limits of the rational mechanics of homo economicus\u2019, although McLure maintains that the mechanical reasoning is also very present in Pareto\u2019s sociology. Clarifying the complex relationship between Pareto\u2019s sociological and economic writings is crucial since, given the explicit presence of ethical and social considerations in the former, different accounts of the influence they exert on his economics can lead to utterly different interpretations of the link between Pareto\u2019s economics and normative questions. In the following part of the project, these different interpretations will allow us to offer different evaluations of Pareto\u2019s rejection of the normative aspect of Walras\u2019s economic thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pareto was Walras\u2019s successor as the Chair of Economics at the University of Lausanne. However, other than their shared belief that the use of mathematics can advance the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002774,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-full-width.php","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-190","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002774"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/190\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/wpnormes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}