Ebook: The Theory of the Individual in Economics: Identity and Value

The concept of the individual and his/her motivations is a bedrock of philosophy. Economics, though, is guilty of taking this hugely important concept without questioning how we theorise it. This superb book remedies this oversight.;Cover; Title; Copyright; Contents; Preface and acknowledgments; 1 Framing the issues; 1.1 Modernism as dualism: origins of the modernist concept of the individual; 1.2 Contemporary critiques of the modernist conception of the individual; 1.3 Individuals in economics; 1.4 Orthodox economics and heterodox economics; 1.5 Plan of this work; PART I Orthodox economics; 2 The atomistic individual; 2.1 Locke's legacy; 2.2 The evolution of the atomistic individual conception; 2.3 The requirements of atomism; 2.4 Methodological individualism and reductionism: a last-ditch defense?