Price, Richard

Price, Richard

▪ British philosopher

born Feb. 23, 1723, Tynton, Glamorgan, Wales
died April 19, 1791, Hackney, near London
 British moral philosopher, expert on insurance and finance, and ardent supporter of the American and French revolutions. His circle of friends included Benjamin Franklin, William Pitt, Lord Shelburne, and David Hume.

      A Dissenter like his father, he ministered to Presbyterians near London. His Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals (1758) pleaded the cause of ethical intuitionism and Rationalism, foreshadowing both Kant's ethics and 20th-century developments. Price was admitted to the Royal Society in 1765 for his work on probability, which later formed the foundation of a scientific system for life insurance and old-age pensions (Observations on Reversionary Payments, 1771). This same book, coupled with An Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt (1772), led William Pitt to reestablish the sinking fund to extinguish England's national debt.

      Enormous sales in America and England followed the publication of his Observations on the nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America (1776). Price was given the freedom of the city of London (1776) and was invited by the U.S. Congress (1778) to advise it on finances. Together with George Washington he was made LL.D. by Yale College in 1781. Price eulogized the French Revolution in a celebrated sermon, Discourse on The Love of Our Country (1789), to which Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France was a reply.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Price, Richard — (1723–1791) Welsh dissenting minister, moral philosopher, and actuary. Price s A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals (1758) is a late defence of rationalism in moral philosophy, against the moral sense theory of Hutcheson and the attempt… …   Philosophy dictionary

  • Price, Richard — See British moralists of the eighteenth century …   History of philosophy

  • PRICE, RICHARD —    English moralist, born in Glamorganshire; wrote on politics and economics as well as ethics, in which last he followed CUDWORTH (q.v. CUDWORTH, RALPH), and insisted on the unimpeachable quality of moral distinctions, and the unimpeachable… …   The Nuttall Encyclopaedia

  • Price, Richard — (1723 1791)    Writer on morals, politics, and economics, s. of a dissenting minister, was b. at Tynton in Wales, ed. at a dissenting coll. in London, and was then for some years chaplain to a Mr. Streatfield, who left him some property.… …   Short biographical dictionary of English literature

  • Price — Price, Richard …   Philosophy dictionary

  • Richard Price (scenariste) — Richard Price (scénariste) Pour les articles homonymes, voir Richard Price (homonymie) et Price. Richard Price est un écrivain, scénariste, acteur et producteur américain né le 12 octobre 1949 dans le Bronx, État de New York (États Unis).… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Richard price (homonymie) — Cette page d’homonymie répertorie les différents sujets et articles partageant un même nom. Pour les articles homonymes, voir Price. Richard H. Price (né en 1943), physicien américain ; Richard Price (1723 1791), moralisateur et philosophe… …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Richard price (scénariste) — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Richard Price (homonymie) et Price. Richard Price est un écrivain, scénariste, acteur et producteur américain né le 12 octobre 1949 dans le Bronx, État de New York (États Unis). Sommaire 1 …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Richard Attenborough — à Toronto en 2007 Données clés Nom de naissance …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Richard H. Price — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Richard Price (homonymie) et Price. Richard H. Price (né le 1er mars 1943 à New York) est un physicien américain majeur, bien connu pour ses travaux importants en relativité générale. Price fut diplômé à la… …   Wikipédia en Français

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