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Philosophy of the Economy pp 1–13Cite as

Introduction: Why a Philosophy of the Economy and Why an Aristotelian Approach?

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Abstract

This first chapter answers the questions in its heading and describes the outline of the book. It also introduces its central ideas: 1) the economy is essentially a human reality; 2) as such, its study should be approached primarily from the perspective of practical reason; 3) economics should recover its practical stance, drawing away from its recent shift to a more technical realm, and, finally, 4) economic activity is human action in society. This is the lens that should enlighten its analysis and practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    I will quote Aristotle in the usual way: making reference to the page, column and line of the Bekker’s edition. Collections of the works of Aristotle widely used are the edited by Barnes (The Complete Works of Aristotle 1984) and by McKeon (The Basic Works of Aristotle 1941): I took quotations from these and from other editions of Aristotle’s books. I preferred to count on various editions to have the freedom to quote the best–in my opinion–translation in each case.

  2. 2.

    The Russian philosopher Sergei Bulgakov asserted more than a century ago: “social science is undoubtedly in need of a productive tie with philosophy, in order to cope, with its help, with the inner disintegration that threatens it” (2000, p. 37).

  3. 3.

    In 1984, Daniel Hausman edited and published an anthology (The Philosophy of Economics. An Anthology, Cambridge University Press) that was subsequently expanded into a Second (1994) and a Third (2008) editions. Sheila C. Dow’s Economic Methodology: An Inquiry (Oxford University Press 2002), published ten years ago, has not lost its relevance, as it tackles some perennial topics. John Davis and Marcel Boumans’s Economic Methodology. Understanding Economics as a Science, (Palgrave MacMillan 2010), includes contributions from Mark Blaug, Harro Maas and Andrej Svorencik. There are many contributions by Larry Boland, for example, The Foundations of Economic Method, Allen & Unwin, 1982. Also noteworthy are John Davis, D. Wade Hands, and Uskali Mäki, eds. (1998) The Handbook of Economic Methodology, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; D. Wade Hands (2001) Reflection without Rules: Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; John Davis, Alain Marciano and Jochen Runde, eds. (2004), The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy (Elgar); Harold Kincaid and Don Ross, eds. (2009), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics, Oxford University Press; Uskali Mäki, Dov M. Gabbay, Paul Thagard and John Woods (eds.), Philosophy of Economics (Elsevier 2009). One last book to mention is Julian Reiss’ The Philosophy of Economics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge 2013), as it is the most updated, taking into account recent profound changes around notions such as explanation, theories, models, rationality, and causal mechanisms. It takes a current approach to the relation between economics and other disciplines, appraising the role, scope and limitations of deductive and inductive reasoning, of measurement and experiments. Finally, the topic of value judgments in economics, the meaning and different visions on economic justice, and global issues are dealt with. Once again, this list of books is far from complete.

  4. 4.

    Cf. also Politics I, 10, 1258a 19–21 and I, 11, 1259a 33-6.

  5. 5.

    Cf. Yves Simon (1991, p. 120).

  6. 6.

    For synthetic expositions of Aristotle’s thinking, see, for example, Ross (1957), Barnes (1982), or Ackrill (1981).

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Mendoza, Argentina

    Ricardo F. Crespo

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Crespo, R.F. (2013). Introduction: Why a Philosophy of the Economy and Why an Aristotelian Approach?. In: Philosophy of the Economy. SpringerBriefs in Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02648-0_1

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