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Showing posts from November, 2020

Commons and Ideas, Part 1

  I would submit that pages 93 to 108 of Institutional Economics is a critical part of understanding John R. Commons overall program to build a different type of economics. This section speaks to his sense of human understanding and cognition. In particular, the argument that Commons doesn't have a clear theory or framework on human cognition is simply wrong. Here is what Commons writes in paragraph two of section III of chapter 2, “But if the mind itself is a unit of activity, then it actually creates its own ideas. An idea is not a copy of reality—it is a useful imagination by which we get our living or get rich. And since getting a living is also resolved into units of activity, then a more complicated classification of ideas is required.” This is such an important point. Commons human cognitive theory is that our minds are crucial in that they construct ideas that determine how to make money in transactions. Then he writes that, “Ideas are the intellectual tools with which we i...

Locke Part 2

 In our first post on Locke, we talked about his examination of the concepts of ideas and sensations in Locke's thinking and the passive mind that copies or reflects external reality.   Locke talked of value as being reflected as the external “use-value” of an item or object being outside of a person.  At the same time, Locke talks of idea as being the internal sensation or reflection of that use value.  Again, it is important to note that these ideas as reflected in use values will be the same for all individuals using reason.   From this point forward, Commons talks of moving from value to valuing .  The verb valuing means that the human person is the interpretation and reinterpretation  of those items of use value.  Human beings think forward about what can be done with the objects. This the key reference to the valuing process that will be crucial to Commons project. Commons also makes reference to the fact that Locke can’t deal wi...