Review of Economic Philosophy

Tag: Neoclassical economics

  • Whatever happened to neoclassical economics?

    Abstract

    Proponents of historical epistemology have highlighted how named concepts are amongst the most fundamental features of successful science. Advances in understanding, not least through the development of critically oriented projects, can be significantly boosted by way of key aspects being formed into named concepts, given the attention the latter tend to receive. I focus here on an analytical phenomenon that I believe warrants being rendered the object of a named concept in modern social science. Such a development, I suspect, would work to the benefit of the discipline of modern economics especially. In fact, the phenomenon in question already once was the object of a named concept within economics, and over 100 years ago. It was associated with the label neoclassical economics. The label lived on, as did the phenomenon for which it was, with reason, introduced. But the two, the label and the labelled, parted company, with the former used thereafter mostly incoherently and the latter persisting unarticulated and indeed mostly unrecognised. So, I also explore how all this happened and question whether there is anything to be taken from this history.

    JEL Codes: A12, A14, B00, B12, B13, B15, B23, B25, B40, B41, B49, B50, B59.

    Keywords

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    [See the article on Cairn Website]

  • Concealed Ideologies : a PAE View of Ideology in Economics

    Abstract

    A conceptual system defines, at the exclusion of others, a point of view toward its object of enquiry. The conceptual systems of the human sciences relate to their objects of enquiry in two ways that invite them to play an ideological function as well as an epistemological one. First, a social-science conceptual system can alter the objects of its enquiry by becoming part of the conceptual and belief apparatus through which humans define themselves, perceive others and make choices, thereby changing the structures and propensities of the human world. Second, unlike the natural sciences, the human sciences are ultimately a means from on high of preserving or reconstructing the basic realities that they study, these in total being the human project. Different conceptual systems present different sets of choices, real or imagined, to be chosen and acted upon by human populations at large. It can never be the case that each of these sets of choices will equally favour every group in society. This means that, regardless of value judgments, it is the nature of all social theorizing, economics being no exception, to favour some groups in society over others, so that any attempt to block enquiry and analysis from multiple theoretical perspectives, i.e., anti-pluralism, is an ideological move.

    Keywords

    Conceptual systems, ideology, pluralism, post-autistic economics, neoclassical economics

    Classification JEL : B4

  • Neoliberal continental drift: An essay on dynamic typology

    Abstract

    Starting from the observation that there is a great deal of confusion about the notion of “neoliberalism,” this study aims to clarify the meaning and the history of the doctrine. To do so, it first develops an original typology distinguishing four tendencies (ordoliberal, neoclassical, Austrian, and French) and then sheds light on the evolution of the movement over the past eight decades.

    JEL classification: B20 – B31 – B53 – E50 – H10

    Keywords

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