Vilfredo Paretos Contributions To Modern Social Theory

This volume seeks to restore Vilfredo Pareto to his rightful place in the history of social and economic thought, bringing together studies by leading scholars to mark the centenary of his death in 1923. Assessing Pareto’s many contributions to the social sciences and his unique integration of the disciplines of sociology, politics, and economics, it addresses the relative neglect of Pareto’s work and explores both his continuing relevance to social research and the influence of his thought on subsequent developments in sociology and social theory. As such it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in the history of sociology and the importance of Pareto’s thought.

Vilfredo Pareto is a key figure in the history of economics and sociology. His sociological works attempted to merge these two disciplines through a psychologistic analysis of society, economy and politics. This is the first book to rethink Pareto's contribution to classical sociology by focusing upon its psychological underpinning. The author locates the origins of Pareto's psychologistic approach both within the history of Italian thought and within Pareto's own experiences of business and politics. He evaluates Pareto's sociology through the lens of contemporary social science, examining whether its explanatory power is growing rather than diminishing as levels of social and epistemological complexity rise. The volume also explores Pareto's assumptions about personality through the lens of contemporary psychology. It concludes with a psychometric study of Westminster MPs which clarifies and attests to Pareto's contemporary relevance, and indicates that even practitioners of politics may gain much from reading Pareto.

The articles reprinted here cover pure economic theory, political economy (including sociological studies), Pareto's law of income distribution and miscellaneous matters, and give a general overview of the man and his contributions.

From the viewpoint of carrying out multi-disciplinary studies between economics and other social sciences, Pareto's theories are especially important as they are the core of contemporary orthodox economics. His sociology is constructed very differently from his economics. First the former deals with non-rational social behaviour of human beings, whilst the latter with rational behaviour; secondly, in the methodology the former is empirical and inductive, while the latter is logical and deductive. The present volume is a revamping of works by two authorities on Pareto. It combines Alfonso de Pietri-Tonelli's address to the Italian Association for Advancement of Science on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Pareto's death with selected chapters of Vilfredo Pareto, sa vie et son oeuvre, Payot, Paris, 1928 by G.H. Bousquet.

Published in 1978, "The Economics of Vilfredo Pareto" is an important contribution to History.

Although Vilfredo Pareto came to sociology after careers in engineering, management, political commentary and economics, his contribution to sociology is far-reaching. Charles Powers' concise, readable introduction to the life, works and thought of this pioneering sociologist will enable students of sociology and related disciplines to understand the origins and implications of Pareto's thought.

This three volume series of intellectual biography considers the life, work and impact on economic, social and political theory of the Italian economist, sociologist and political scientist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). This second volume follows Pareto from his time teaching at Lausanne to the juncture in his life where he first began to make theoretical contributions of his own. Mornati considers Pareto’s work on pure economics, general equilibrium, welfare economics and the economic case for socialism, as well as his critical observations of Italian and Swiss public policy.

This collection examines the work of the Italian economist and social theorist Vilfredo Pareto, highlighting the extraordinary scope of his thought, which covers a vast range of academic disciplines. The volume underlines the enduring and contemporary relevance of Pareto's ideas on a bewildering variety of topics; while illuminating his attempt to unite different disciplines, such as history and sociology, in his quest for a 'holistic' understanding of society. Bringing together the world's leading experts on Pareto, this collection will be of interest to scholars working in the fields of sociology and social psychology, monetary theory and risk analysis, philosophy and intellectual history, and political science and rhetoric.

There has been a recent resurgence of interest in the work of Vilfredo Pareto, one of the founders of modern economics. This book reconstructs the genesis and significance of Pareto's theory of choice which is Pareto's greatest contribution to economic science and which was used by John Hicks, amongst others, to develop microeconomics. Hicks, Allen, Samuelson and others acknowledged Pareto as the father of the new ordinalist microeconomics but at the same time, portrayed him as confused and contradictory, caught between the old and new paradigms. Luigino Bruni argues that Pareto's revolution in choice theory is better understood in the context of his own philosophical framework. This framework is revealed by reconstructing his dialogues with economists (Pantaleoni) and philosophers (Vailati and Croce), and by exploring Pareto's economic theory in the light of his philosophy of science. In addition, Luigino Bruni argues that Pareto's contribution was different and more complex than Hicks's ordinalism and Samuelson's operationalism. From this analysis emerges an image of Pareto as a man whose ideas and work was only partially fulfilled. This original and sometimes unconventional book will be of great interest to economists, historians of economic thought and philosophers of the social sciences.

This three volume series of intellectual biography considers the life, work and impact on economic, social and political theory of the Italian economist, sociologist and political scientist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923). This volume covers the period starting from his childhood up to his early political activism, amateur journalism and initial scholarly contributions. His pre-Lausanne years are often neglected by students of Pareto, but form the intellectual and biographical background to his later contributions to economic, social and political theory.