Abstract

This paper comments on Ambrosi’s ‘Aristotle’s geometrical accounting’ (Cambridge Journal of Economics 2018, 42, 543–576). While supporting Ambrosi’s case that Aristotle may well have used geometry to demonstrate accounting equivalence, the paper takes issue with Ambrosi’s specific approach to interpreting Aristotle’s ‘merit or worth’ in terms of income. It is entirely reasonable to understand worth in terms of income. However, Ambrosi implies that worth is determined by market prices; this is inconsistent with Aristotle’s treatment of distributive justice. Rather Aristotle states that relative worth is determined prior to market exchange. In other words, Aristotle seeks to identify the just price to which market prices may or may not correspond. Ambrosi’s own geometrical method is extended to illustrate this point, to provide a geometrical alternative to Ambrosi’s algebraic derivation of the key proposition ‘as builder to shoemaker, so shoes to houses’, and to resolve what Aristotle means by ‘one should not introduce them as terms in a figure of proportion when they are already making the exchange (since otherwise one of the two extremes will have both of the excess amounts) but when they are still in possession of their own products’. Aristotle deserves recognition as the first Western economist and as a Classical economist to boot, in the sense of holding that distribution is determined prior to exchange.

中文翻译：

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亚里士多德的几何核算

摘要

本文评论了安布罗西（Ambrosi）的“亚里士多德的几何核算”（Cambridge Journal of Economics2018，42，543–576）。在支持安布罗西关于亚里士多德很可能使用几何来证明会计等价关系的案例的同时，本文对安布罗西的特定方法来解释亚里士多德的“功绩或价值”提出了质疑。了解收入的价值是完全合理的。但是，安布罗西暗示价值是由市场价格决定的；这与亚里士多德对分配正义的对待是​​不一致的。亚里士多德（Rristo Aristotle）说，相对价值是在市场交换之前确定的。换句话说，亚里斯多德试图确定市场价格可能对应或可能不对应的公正价格。扩展了Ambrosi自己的几何方法来说明这一点，为Ambrosi代数推导关键命题“作为鞋匠的制造者，因此要解决亚里士多德的意思，即“当他们已经进行交换时，不应以比例的形式介绍它们（因为否则两个极端之一将同时拥有这两个数量）”，但是当他们仍然拥有自己的产品时。从认为分配是在交换之前就确定的意义上讲，亚里斯多德应该被公认为第一位西方经济学家和古典经济学家。