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Risky exchanges: price and justice in Thomas Aquinas’s De emptione et venditione ad tempus

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  • Pierre Januard

Abstract

Thomas Aquinas’s De emptione et venditione ad tempus is concerned less with usury than with commercial exchange. Cross-referencing the economic aspects of forward selling and the role of the virtue of justice with Aquinas's concepts of sign and analogy leads us to revise our understanding of the just price, drawing a distinction between three different levels of reality (normative, market, and singular exchange), each of which gives rise to analytical, commercial, and strategic risks. This risk-analysis grid offers a basis for a new reading of his later works, notably the Summa theologiae.

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  • Pierre Januard, 2022. "Risky exchanges: price and justice in Thomas Aquinas’s De emptione et venditione ad tempus," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 729-769, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:eujhet:v:29:y:2022:i:4:p:729-769
    DOI: 10.1080/09672567.2022.2086281
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    Cited by:

    1. André Lapidus, 2023. "Hugo Grotius on Usury," Post-Print hal-03989450, HAL.
    2. Pierre Januard, 2022. "Probability, prudence, danger: Thomas Aquinas on the building of the lexicon of risk," Working Papers halshs-03787210, HAL.
    3. Pierre Januard, 2022. "Risks on Trade: The Activity of the Merchant in Thomas Aquinas's Commentary on the Sentences," Post-Print halshs-03515973, HAL.
    4. 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.
    5. Pierre Januard, 2022. "Licit and illicit risks in Thomas Aquinas's De emptione et venditione ad tempus [Risques licites et illicites dans le De emptione et venditione ad tempus de Thomas d'Aquin]," Working Papers halshs-03559035, HAL.
    6. Januard, Pierre, 2024. "Probability, prudence, danger: Thomas Aquinas on the building of the lexicon of risk," SocArXiv n7j9t, Center for Open Science.
    7. Pierre Januard, 2022. "Licit and illicit risks in Thomas Aquinas's De emptione et venditione ad tempus [Risques licites et illicites dans le De emptione et venditione ad tempus de Thomas d'Aquin]," Post-Print halshs-03559035, HAL.
    8. André Lapidus, 2023. "Hugo Grotius on Exchange and Price," Post-Print hal-04125980, HAL.

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