Science and Society in William Stanley Jevons's Thought: Improvement through Knowledge

Buono, Eleonora

This open access book deals with the ideas and work of William Stanley Jevons (1835 – 1882). Jevons is now mainly known as an economist. His revision of the theory of value and the definition of the principle of decreasing marginal utility gained him a prominent place in the history of economic thought. However, Jevons’s oeuvre goes far beyond his contribution to economics. He was a logician and a natural scientist. Jevons was always a godly man, and his religious beliefs, far from being a merely private aspect, were highly influential in his works. He was interested in evolutionism, and especially in Herbert Spencer’s philosophy. This book explores Jevons’s work as a Victorian social scientist, who was committed to understand the natural laws regulating human society in order to improve it. The book explores several different facets of Jevons's thought, such as: his religious views, in connection with scientific method and study of probability; the link between nineteenth-century Unitarianism, the branch of Dissent of which Jevons was part, and his moral and political thought; the role played by Herbert Spencer’s thought in Jevons’s political philosophy; the relevance of his religious views, philosophy of logic, moral and political thought to his economic theory.

Details

Published by: Palgrave Macmillan

Publication Date: 2026-05-05

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783032187307

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-18731-4

Dimensions: 210cm x148cm

Pages: 361