ABSTRACT
John B. Davis has focused on the analysis of the concept of identity underlying different economic currents and his own concept of identity. He has repeatedly insisted on the need for an ontological analysis of the identity of the economic agents. Beginning with an article in 1995 and spanning two books (2003 and 2011) and a great number of articles, this topic remains as one of the main focuses of his intellectual work to this day.
This chapter will first review the strengths and problems that Davis sees in other conceptions of identity in economics – Akerlof and Kranton, Amartya Sen, and Kirman and Teschl. Then it will present Davis’s developments about this subject. Finally, it will introduce another theory of identity based on Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian concepts that may match with Davis’s aims.
