The argument so far has set forth three basic approaches to the question of the role of beliefs and opinions in the economic behaviour of the individual agent. Chapter I put forward the position predominant in economic philosophy: ‘Ideas rule the world of human affairs and its events’. The stress falls squarely on the power of beliefs and opinions to determine conduct, and these are themselves largely explained (except Hume) as resulting from the ‘war of ideas’ waged by intellectuals, in particular those who deal directly with economic and political issues.

Chapter 2 outlined the radical challenge to this view associated with physicalism and the ‘man–machine’ doctrine: ‘Mental events are caused phenomena with no causal efficacy’. The beliefs and opinions of agents, in so far as they correlate with their bodily actions, are assumed away as epiphenomena, i.e. a subclass of physiological events which is devoid of true explanatory power.

Finally, chapter 3 retraced the formulation of the concept of ‘economic man’ in the history of economic science, focusing on the rise of standard neo–classical theory and its attempt to work out a ‘mechanics of utility and self–interest’ or ‘Mechanique Sociale’. A central feature of this move, it is argued, was the normalization of economic behaviour, so that the actions of the individual agent could be explained as automatic responses to the changing price signals in the economy.