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Some Philosophical Aspects of Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Arthur Peter Becker
Arthur Peter Becker*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Abstract

The naive misunderstanding among economists of the relationship between economics and philosophy is as profound as it is prevalent. To be sure, economists have concerned themselves with the philosophy of economics only so much as to familiarize themselves with methodology and its application to economic inquiry. Since economics is the oldest and perhaps the most “respectable” of the social sciences its scholars have developed a phobia for anything they might suspect to be even remotely unscientific. Consequently, they have erroneously narrowed their understanding of the nature of economics. This narrowness prevails largely because most economists possess little or no training in general philosophy and especially in the philosophy of science. As a result of this apparent deficiency there exists in the minds of these economists confusion and inability to distinguish between teleology, axiology, and ethics as they do or do not apply to economics.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , July 1948 , pp. 242 - 246
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1948

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References

1 “Social actions” are the actions of individuals or groups of persons as they relate to other individuals or groups of persons. They are the dynamic expression of “social patterns” such as customs, conventions, and institutions which may be viewed as static in thinking about them. A social action or pattern is “economic” if it renders maximum satisfaction to an individual or group with given resources or if it attains a prescribed level of satisfaction with the least of scarce resources.

2 Methodology here refers to the objective or logical rules of procedure necessary to arrive at correct belief.

3 See: J. E. Cairnes, The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy (second edition), pp. 37–38; H. J. Davenport, The Economics of Enterprise, p. 126; Lionel Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (second edition), p. 24.

4 Pragmatists of various types seem to contradict each other as to whether the basic viewpoint should be individualistic or social.

5 The situation would be even more ridiculous inasmuch as Dr. Dewey's biological pragmatism would make philosophy, and thus economics as well, merely a branch of biology.