JEVONS, WILLIAM STANLEY. - English philosopher and economist, b. at Liverpool on 1 Sept. 1835, d. drowned at Galley Hill, near Hastings, on 13 Aug. 1882. He held the teaching of logic and political economy at Owen's College, Manchester. He then succeeded Cairnes in the chair of political economy at University College, London.
In his studies of logic, he illustrated the deductive process, understood in a mechanistic way (Primer of logic, 1876; Pure logic and other minor works, 1890; Principles of science, 1874). He considered mathematics as a form of logic, and developed the problem of probability according to the criteria of modern methodological statistics. His moral doctrine is deeply marked by the utilitarian motives of the English philosophical tradition. His economic activity was very important, of which the Theory of political economy (1871) is the most famous work. In economics he is considered the founder of the school that makes extensive use of the mathematical method, although in this method he was preceded by Cournot (1838) and by Gossen (1854). It remains controversial, however, within what limits he anticipated the most modern tendencies of economic thought that go under the name of the theory of general equilibrium. The theory of final (later called marginal) utility that he advocated (1871) does not imply a new concept with respect to the classical school, but rather a greater determination of the concept of limitation or scarcity, whose importance, as an element of value, was pointed out by Senior. According to it, utility depends on the quantity of goods, and it emphasizes the importance of the distinction between the utility that a good, considered as a whole, has for the single individual and the utility that the single doses of this good have for him, and in particular the last dose, which is always of minimal proportion, considered as the limit of the process of purchase, or as awaited or hoped for by the economic subject (final utility). So that in the concept of final utility, utility and scarcity become the basis of value, and it is the equivalent of Pareto's elementary ophelimity and of Walras's scarcity. With this theory contrasted that of the classical economists, who placed the foundation of value in the cost of production.
His studies of logic were then of assistance to him in the treatment of problems of statistics in a series of important essays collected posthumously under the title Investigations in currency and finance (1884), concerning treatments relating to the periodic fluctuations of prices and to monetary questions. Other posthumous writings, less important, were collected under the title Methods of social reform (1883) and contain studies concerning the State in relation to labor and public finances, the methods of social reform.
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Bruno Brunello