=================== HES POSTING ====================== On Thu, 3 Oct 1996, C.N.Gomersall broadened his question: > In fact, my original question goes beyond the terms themselves and extends > to the ideas which they represent. The idea that, say, one's money wage was > a kind of mask, so to speak, and that what mattered was what it could buy, > i.e., one's real wage, very loosely defined... in what mediaeval, even > ancient writers, has this idea been discussed? What connections are there, > if any, between "real" economic variables and Platonic ideas (neo- or > otherwise) of "essence"? I don't speak for the Ancients or the philosophers; I am only the fourth wheel on our editorial tricycle here at HES. Tony Brewer(?) notes here that questions such as C.N.'s original can be interpreted broadly or narrowly, regarding "concepts" or "terms". Regarding the concept or family of concepts, where C.N. refocuses above, we must consider all of the following English-language adjectives from 18-19c economics: real actual intrinsic natural and no doubt others (essential?). In my judgment: Typically, those who coin such terms (give them some technical sense), and many who circulate them, mean to emphasize what is real/etc, to propose the real/etc as the object of study, to suggest that the real/etc is what is important. That is, they are anti-nominalists rather than nominalists. --programmatic anti-nominalists (what we should study) or philosophic ones (what is important). ----Paul Paul Wendt, Watertown MA HES e-subscriptions manager and co-editor ============ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ============ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]