The Philosophy of Economics

Today's Problems in The MInds of The Great Economists, 2021

This book presents the history of economic thought as it relates to today’s most pressing problems, and it emphasizes the critical connection that exists between what may seem cold, unrealistic mathematical economic models, and the quality of everyday life of any citizen of the planet earth. It shows how contemporary developments in neoclassical theoretical models in Welfare Economics, General Equilibrium Theory, Information Economics and Game Theory have created the necessity to integrate the neoclassical theory of free markets and the institutional theory. It argues that while the main goal of economics is to improve human wellbeing in a broad sense, the quality of human life; we should also take into account its second goal, which is to improve the microeconomic efficiency of the system. We should not lose sight of the fundamental contributions of the free markets, and of neoclassical economics which have seriously influenced the digital and financial revolutions that have allowed the ICT Revolution to happen. Individual freedom and creativity are critical for the success of capitalism. But they do not happen in a vacuum, institutions are required. It argues that the future of economic theory and policy will be defined by contributions in three fronts: pure theoretical models of free markets, institutional models, and models capable to integrate the interaction between free markets and institutions in the final determination of the actual economic equilibrium.

The closing decades of the twentieth century saw a dramatic increase in interest in the role of philosophical ideas in economics. The period also saw a significant expansion in scholarly investigation into the different connections between economics and philosophy, as seen in the emergence of new journals, professional associations, conferences, seminar series, websites, research networks, teaching methods, and interdisciplinary collaboration. One of the results of this set of developments has been a remarkable distillation in thinking about philosophy and economics around a number of key subjects and themes. The goal of this Companion to Economics and Philosophy is to exhibit and explore a number of these areas of convergence. The volume is accordingly divided into three parts, each of which highlights a leading area of scholarly concern. They are: political economy conceived as political philosophy, the methodology and epistemology of economics, and social ontology and the ontology of economics. The authors of the chapters in the volume were chosen on the basis of their having made distinctive and innovative contributions to their respective areas of expertise. In addition, authors were asked to not only survey the state of the field as they saw it, but also provide statements of their own positions and their perspectives on the field in question and its possible direction of development in the future. We thus hope this volume will serve not only as an introduction to the field, but also stimulate further work and thinking concerning the questions it investigates. Political economy conceived as political philosophy The essays in the first part of this Companion investigate the idea of economics or political economy as political philosophy. This last term should not to be understood in the pejoratively restrictive sense of Rosenberg's (1992) definition of economics as mathematical political science. Rather, it should be taken to refer to the use of specific (namely economic) tools to understand the conditions of social order. This perspective harks back to the founders of economics and their conception of the discipline. Of course some would argue that more than two hundred years of scientific research have carried the discipline away from this conception. In fact, however, and as the issues discussed in the chapters in this section show, the distance that separates political economy in its recent developments from its origins is not that large.

2019

Debates on economics and economic issues around the world have been quite ideological for a considerable part of the past 100 years. Correspondingly, diagnoses and prescriptions put forward by economists are flavored according to dominant perception of the normative world, which explains why they are commonly seen as a panacea: if all you know is what you have subscribed to, then what you prescribe is all you have recognized. The temper of this trend, however, has made a neutral position impossible, or even undesirable to maintain, since a middle ground has become a no man’s land.

World Develop, 1986

2011

Companion f o Economics and Philosophy, Edward Elgar (2004), 509+xxii pp., ISBN I-84064-964-x reviewed by Till Griine-Yanoff, Royal Institute of Technology, Dept of Philosophy and the History of Technology, Stockholm DESPITE ITS TITLE, this Companion contains little economics. Rather, it presents topics from the philosophy of economics. The title may still be appropriate, as the philosophy of economics addresses many issues that should be of great interest and importance to economists. However, many authors of this volume seem to understand their project as opposed to economics (or rather, what they call 'mainstream' economics). This is unfortunate. Philosophy of economics is dependent on the science that it purports to be of. It discusses economics' specific epistemic, conceptual and normative problems, and intends to contribute to their solution or at least clarification. Naturally, such a project requires a critical perspective. But it must be friendly criticism. If philosophers reject the core of contemporary economics, and 'seek to re-orientate the economics discipline' as a whole (Lawson in this volume, 322), they will be confined to a state of irrelevance: ignored by economists busy building their science, but unable to produce a serious alternative themselves. Nevertheless, the Companion includes many highly informative and at times provocative papers on important philosophical questions about economics. It contains twenty-three papers, categorized into three parts concerning political economy, methodology and ontology. The political economy part discusses the use of economic tools for the end of political philosophy, namely to understand and justify social order. Two papers from this part challenge contemporary economic theory to live up to this task. Hargreaves Heap points out that the rational choice model only provides incomplete explanations of institution formation. Coordination games used for this purpose typically have multiple Nash equilibria, and selecting the one that will or should be played requires reference to factors that are outside of the standard model. In particular, Hargreaves Heap argues, reference to convention alone is not enough: what motivates people to select one equilibrium is not only dictated by what they think what others will do (in accord with historical precedent), but what they

Atlantic Economic Journal, 2022

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The unrelieved state of dissatisfaction about the right method of inquiry seems to have become a characteristic of the philosophy of social science. Economics has played a crucial role in the modern extensions of the debate. The echoes of Methodenstreit remind us about one unfinished goal ahead, namely the search for historical specificity in the study of social phenomena. The task of this study is to discuss the degree to which such a claim is valid. After reviewing the existing scholarship, the argument comes down to a simple thesis: a successful test of the scientific exercise in the study of social phenomena is not associated either with its degree of formalism, or its predictive power, or still with its capacity to unearth causal relations; it is specifically about understanding the sequential classes of events that affect human development and that undergo historical and cultural transformations under the influence of short-lived, recurrent events.

Econ J, 2006

A survey was carried out among two groups of undergraduate economics students and four groups of students in mathematics, law, philosophy and business administration. The main survey question involved a conflict between profit maximisation and the welfare of the workers who would be fired to achieve it. Significant differences were found between the choices of the groups. The results were reinforced by a survey conducted among readers of an Israeli business newspaper and PhD students of Harvard. It is argued that the overly mathematical methods used to teach economics encourage students to lean towards profit maximisation. * I thank two individuals who helped me enormously in conducting this research: Eli Zvuluny (http://www.possibleworlds.co.il/) who constructed and managed the site which served as the platform for conducting the survey and Michael Ornstein who assisted me in analysing the data. Thanks are also due to the many economists who responded to the preliminary discussion paper and confirmed that the results had hit a nerve.

2018

More and more often, confidence in the professional qualifications of individuals representing certain occupational groups which formerly were held in high esteem has started to erode. Dismissing scientific evidence and ignoring expert opinion has become a feature of political discourse around alternative truth. In part this is self-inflicted as various statements that are publicized with the aura of academic certainty do not stand up to closer scrutiny. Alas, this applies particularly to economics, which is often held up as the supreme discipline of social sciences. It suffices to take a look on page one of reasonably respectable printed media to recognize how important economics is in contemporary society. In this chapter, we highlight some issues from micro- and macroeconomics that are critical.

The Economic Journal, 2006

A survey was carried out among two groups of undergraduate economics students and four groups of students in mathematics, law, philosophy and business administration. The main survey question involved a conflict between profit maximisation and the welfare of the workers who would be fired to achieve it. Significant differences were found between the choices of the groups. The results were reinforced by a survey conducted among readers of an Israeli business newspaper and PhD students of Harvard. It is argued that the overly mathematical methods used to teach economics encourage students to lean towards profit maximisation. * I thank two individuals who helped me enormously in conducting this research: Eli Zvuluny () who constructed and managed the site which served as the platform for conducting the survey and Michael Ornstein who assisted me in analysing the data. Thanks are also due to the many economists who responded to the preliminary discussion paper and confirmed that the results had hit a nerve.

Post-Crash Economics, Plurality and Heterodox Ideas in Teaching and Research, 2018