Value and Valuation
The terms value and valuation and their cognates and compounds are used in a confused and confusing but widespread way in our contemporary culture, not only in economics and philosophy but also and especially in other social sciences and humanities. Their meaning was once relatively clear and their use limited. Value meant the worth of a thing, and valuation meant an estimate of its worth. The worth in question was mainly economic or quasi economic, but even when it was not, it was still worth of some sort—not beauty, truth, rightness, or even goodness. The extension of the meaning and use of the terms began in economics, or political economy, as it was then called. Value and valuation became technical terms central to that branch of economics which was labeled the theory of value. Then German philosophers, especially Rudolf Hermann Lotze, Albrecht Ritschl, and Friedrich Nietzsche, began to take the notion of value and values in a much broader sense and to give it primary importance in their thinking.
Philosophers from the time of Plato had discussed a variety of questions under such headings as the good, the end, the right, obligation, virtue, moral judgment, aesthetic judgment, the beautiful, truth, and validity.
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