utility, n.Definitions

Utility is the idea that we must see things coarsely in order for them to be useable to us.

Utility is often discovered later. The most esoteric researches have found important applications.

Utility is everything. The only worthwhile achievements of man are those which are socially useful.

Utility is a result rather than the cause of being known. Animals and plants are not known as a result of their usefulness but are deemed to be useful or interesting because they are first of all known.

Utility is, in modern economic theory, not some kind of substantive objective function analogous to profits that the consumer tries to maximize. Utility is simply shorthand for preferences, and rationality means nothing more than the choice of the most preferred option in the feasibility set, subject to consistency constraints.

Utility is not something fixed but arises out of configurations. Nobody has ever encountered a tool created wholly for a use yet to be found, on materials yet to be discovered.

Utility is greatest of all in that which has no utility. Nothing is more useful to man that those arts which have no utility.

Utility is tautological because whatever a person does, be it work or leisure, is declared to be utility maximization of something or other.