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At the Boundaries of the Trading Sphere: The Appearance of the 'Just Price' in Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences

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  • Pierre Januard

    (PHARE - Philosophie, Histoire et Analyse des Représentations Économiques - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Abstract

The term 'just price' appears only twice in the Commentary on the Sentences, the most important of Thomas Aquinas's early works. Yet these little known and seemingly incidental appearances, related to a non-tradable good and a semi-tradable good, are in fact fundamental and decisive: they offer a new way of understanding the Thomasian just price as an analogy of justice; they highlight the role of price in reducing the risk of lack of information about the justice of exchange; they allow the market to be delimited; and they indicate how, through paying particular attention to the goods, Aquinas implements an objective approach that reduces the subjective risk concerning the agents and their hidden intentions.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre Januard, 2022. "At the Boundaries of the Trading Sphere: The Appearance of the 'Just Price' in Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences," Working Papers halshs-03658417, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-03658417
    DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.2.14917.73446
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://shs.hal.science/halshs-03658417
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Keywords

    Thomas Aquinas; Scholastics; just price; risk;
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