Abstract
The term ‘financial literacy’ seems to imply that the ‘financial’ is readable. In spite of a wide field of research concerning boundedness of rationality, biased decision-making, etc., the ideal of comprehension of financial affairs remains intact. Together with the ideal of teachability, i.e. the educational equivalent to readability, this hampers the insight into the dimensions of incomprehensibility. Taking the perspective of financial incomprehensibility provides new theoretical perspectives and new ‘educational’ solutions. The chapter thus distinguishes between different levels and forms of incomprehensibility relevant for mapping the field of financial epistemology.
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Notes
- 1.
In contrast to some linguistic traditions ‘giving meaning’ and ‘making sense’ will be used interchangeably.
- 2.
Cf. Peirce’s (1931) basic differentiation of firstness, secondness and thirdness.
- 3.
This more socio-political perspective corresponds to Freire’s (1970) approach to literacy, i.e. alphabetization.
- 4.
For these three potential spheres of reactions cf. Abbott 2014, 11.
- 5.
Cf. the one-trillion-dollar-coin, i.e. the serious idea of minting such a symbolic value in order to repay federal debts of the USA by handing it over to the Federal Reserve, which ‘owes’ a tremendous amount of bonds.
- 6.
Lyotard (1989, 184) found in capitalism something sublime because it is guided by the idea of unlimited wealth and unlimited power. Even the market power of multi-nationals or financial-markets as such can appear sublime in their more or less chaotic procession, left to chance and crashing speculative foresight (cf. Voigt 2011, 6).
- 7.
Abbott (2014, 5) discusses the sublime as a concept to fend off excess; in the same way he interprets mainstream economic theory: “In summary, excess has seldom been a focal topic for formal economic thinking for the past two centuries. Mainstream economic theorists quickly translate most problems of excess into those problems of scarcity for which their intellectual machinery has come to be so well designed.”
- 8.
Under complex modern conditions the sublime in general is not to be seen as a kind of metaphysical dwelling providing security (Pries 1989, 25ff).
- 9.
Altruism is of course not irrational per se, however the seeming irrationality of e.g. self-sacrificing is a usual proof of believe—and not of reason.
- 10.
The personality of the teacher and its importance for creating moments of understanding is of course a major didactical discussion (e.g. Klafki 1964, 336).
- 11.
From Husserl’s (1970, 53) phenomenological perspective science is also human practice and thus meaningful; “the ‘law of exact lawfulness’ according to which every occurrence in ‘nature’—idealized nature—must come under exact laws” is a concealment of the life-world as the meaning-fundament.
- 12.
Simon (1993, 92ff) discusses the limitations of human attention concerning certain feedback processes. Facing the relation of inflation and unemployment or of energy and environmental policy, the focus of the argument is always on one element while the other is neglected (cf. also Leiser and Drori 2005).
- 13.
Consequently there is discussion concerning false generalizations or ‘micro-macro-problems’ which deal with the problem of everyday abstractions from indi-vidual experiences and situations (for an overview Zoerner 2008).
- 14.
- 15.
Cf. Davies (2014) on mis-selling practices in the UK.
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Remmele, B. (2016). Financial Literacy and Financial Incomprehensibility. In: Aprea, C., et al. International Handbook of Financial Literacy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0360-8_4
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