Common Sense: Middle Way Between Formalism and Post-Structuralism

Authors

John B. Davis, Marquette UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Format of Original

13 p.

Publication Date

7-1999

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Source Publication

Cambridge Journal of Economics

Source ISSN

0309-166X

Abstract

John Coates's The Claims of Common Sense argues that common-sense philosophy is central to Cambridge economics and philosophy, and represents a viable middle way between formalism and post-structuralism. This paper concentrates on the opposition between common sense and formalism. The latter is explained in terms of Quine's formal semantics and neoclassical axiomatic choice theory, which share a critique of ordinary language, a commitment to logical determinacy, a functionalist view of mind, and the idea of ontology driven by logic. Coates's common-sense Cambridge alternative is explained in terms of Wittgenstein's and Keyne's views on vagueness.

Comments

Accepted version.Cambridge Journal of Economics, Vol. 23, No. 4 (July 1999): 503-515. DOI.© Oxford University Press 1999. Used with permission.

Recommended Citation

Davis, John B., "Common Sense: Middle Way Between Formalism and Post-Structuralism" (1999). Economics Faculty Research and Publications. 187.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_fac/187