2025-09-12
Rodrigo, Laera, Rodrigo, Laera
Robbins’ influential definition of economics as the science that studies human behavior as a relationship between ends and scarce means that have alternative uses has been widely adopted in economics textbooks. However, this definition reflects a teleological commitment that warrants further examination. This paper analyzes the teleological underpinnings of Robbins’ definition and argues for reincorporating ethical considerations about the desirability of different ends into economic analysis. To address this issue, the teleological character of Robbins’ definition will be examined first, which focuses on the means and takes the ends as given, in contrast to two historical conceptions of economics: as the study of wealth and as the science of exchange (catallactics). Subsequently, the paper will focus on homo economicus, the agent responsible for the execution of the means and who makes himself up as a teleological subject. Finally, the idea of how ethics can be integrated into a definition of economics will be presented.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.151312025-04-29
Cartelier, Jean, Cartelier, Jean
Beyond the contradictory appreciations of Mandeville famous book, condemned and misinterpreted at the time of its publication, repressed later, Fable of the bees is more relevant today than ever. The two founding acts of modern political economy—namely progressive emancipation of moral since 13th century and Smith’s value theory in the 18th century—are invalidated by the apparent paradoxes presented in Fable of the bees. This double denial of a political economy which was yet to come is what makes Mandeville so subversive nowadays.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.148082024-11-21
Bellido, Francisco J., Bellido, Francisco J.
According to methodological individualism any scientific explanation in the social sciences should have recourse to individual beliefs, wishes, intentions and actions. This article sets forth two practical reasons to endorse a clear-cut, classical version of methodological individualism as a research programme in the social sciences. The first one is that methodological individualism should lead to fundamental heuristic hypotheses. The second reason is that methodological individualism has the epistemological strength of producing statements open to logical refutation.The present article questions highly sophisticated accounts of methodological individualism. It suggests instead four tenets to be a valid research programme in the social sciences underscoring an intuitive language to analyze social phenomena. By doing so, it reviews some distinctive features of methodological individualism: Max Weber’s ideal types, Joseph Schumpeter’s notion of given behaviour, Friedrich Hayek’s concept of individual action and Jon Elster’s account of explanatory mechanisms.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.130562024-05-04
Jennings Jr., Frederic, B, Jennings Jr., Frederic, B
In earlier work, the author has studied the economic role of planning horizons in making a case for complementarity as the predominant feature of social interdependence. This paper compares the different choice strategies implied by substitution, opposition and conflicts of interest in an economics of fear with those arising from horizon effects, economic complementarity and concerts of interest in an economics based on love. The contrasting implications of a psychological literature on negative vs. positive emotions and their health effects, along with the findings in neurophysiological research about how humans are hard-wired for empathy and compassion leads to some fundamental changes in how we might address and revise social problems through economic analysis. The aim of this paper is to extend a horizonal case for complementarity in the author's previous work into its psychological links to research findings on healthy cognitive function and its emotional basis. An economics of substitution yields quite different conclusions about optimal institutional forms and how we address and frame social relations than are implied by an explicitly horizonal economics of complementary social relations. Recent psychological and neurophysiological studies support a horizonal case for complementarity in social relations, showing that our orthodox substitution assumptions and models of competitive equilibrium should be rejected for a renewed economic analysis based on horizonal models of complementarity and cooperation as a means to achieve greater social well-being in a healthier and more integrative form of social organization. The issues to be explored are not entertained within the currently existing frame of orthodox economics, so we must step beyond our standard habitual assumptions.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.115702023-10-26
Pătruți, Alexandru, Pătruți, Alexandru
Review of Jon D. Erickson, The Progress Illusion: Reclaiming Our Future from the Fairytale of Economics
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.112412023-10-19
Souaiaia, Ahmed, E, Souaiaia, Ahmed, E
This work aims to present key concepts, ideas, and events that can be derived mainly from Ibn Khaldun’s chapter on economic life, which he captures with the heading, Chapter on Making a Living (ma`āsh). Justifying this undertaking is the significance of Ibn Khaldun’s contributions, the scarcity of translations of his work, and the dependency of secondary interpretive works on a single English translation. While a reading of Ibn Khaldun’s economic philosophy through a textual analysis of the primary sources remains the focus of this work, a sampling of the interpretive and translation works is also presented here in order to understand the level of engagement of non-Arabic scholars with Ibn Khaldun’s work and as a frame of mind with which economic philosophers and social historians might engage.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.109152023-10-13
Rochon, Louis-Philippe, Rochon, Louis-Philippe
This article discusses the future of post-Keynesian economics by considering three angles: i) the future of post-Keynesian economics as an institution or as a school of thougth; ii) the future of post-Keynesian theory; and finally, iii) the future of post-Keynesian within the profession. My conclusion is fairly positive overall, although the place of post-Keynesian economics within the profession is certainly not enviable.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.108902023-10-13
Folbre, Nancy, Folbre, Nancy
This case study in the evolution of heterodox economics describes the emergence of feminist perspectives on care provision and their implications for a larger theory of bargaining over the distribution of gains from cooperation. It testifies to the hybrid vigor of diverse and ongoing efforts to challenge the narrow focus of the neoclassical paradigm.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.108852023-04-25
Garcés-Velástegui, Pablo, Garcés-Velástegui, Pablo
Development is a value-laden concept and, as such, an essentially contested issue. To different extents, different ideas of development entail different assumptions about human agency. Although economics has been the most influential discipline, increasingly different accounts highlight distinct features of human beings and the contexts they inhabit, which lead to different implications. This article seeks to delineate the boundaries of the discussion and map out what are arguably the main alternatives within the field. Since such discussion deals with the question of what human action is, the argument is elaborated from the philosophy of science. Contra convention, the discussion uses a philosophical ontology, which is concerned with out connection to the world. Jackson’s heuristic is adopted to generate four philosophies of science and four notions of agency, regarded as ideal typical. Neopositivism advances a rational agent, reflexivity suggests a patient, critical realism furthers an interagent, and analyticism proposes a transagent. This article invites scholars and practitioners interested in this increasingly interdisciplinary area to raise their awareness regarding the foundations on which their ideas about human agency build and note the implications they have for the production and consumption of knowledge.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.88732023-02-13
Văduva, Ionuț, Văduva, Ionuț
Review of Lehmann, P.-J., Liberalism and Capitalism Today, London, Hoboken: ISTE-Wiley, 2021, 214 pp, ISBN 978-1-78630-689-0
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.102202023-01-31
Faella, Gian Paolo, Faella, Gian Paolo
The paper analyzes the nature of Political Economy as a modern conversational style, by defining its logical and rhetoric features. Successively, a wider historical and political context linked to the birth of the discipline is taken into account and thoroughly introduced in its implications for the interpretation of the role of such a discipline in modern life. Finally Political Economy is examined under the light of the educational effort it requires, as an anti- rhetoric method of inquiry and dialogue.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.99642022-12-15
Popovici, Alexandru, A., Popovici, Alexandru, A.
The conception of the founder of the Austrian School, in his book on the philosophy of social sciences, has been described, by the supporters of this school, as a total methodological individualism, upholding the absolute specificity of these sciences to those of nature, and as rejecting the use of mathematics in economics. In fact, the human individual was, for Carl Menger, only the fundamental element of socioeconomic structures. Economic theory was to be inspired by the "atomism" of the natural sciences and to determine the causes, effects and laws of the studied phenomena, with the aim of predicting and controlling them. Empirical study had to unite with conceptual abstraction and mathematics, in proportions determined by the simplicity or complexity of the field of research. These characteristics of the conception of C. Manger, like similar others, make us assume an important (but unconfessed) influence of A. Comte's positivism. However, to prove it, we will try to restore his true philosophy of science, warped by the neo-positivism of the energetist physicists and of the Vienna Circle.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.100332022-11-24
Petre Comșa, Fr, Munteanu, Costea, Petre Comșa, Fr, Munteanu, Costea
Many present day scientists think that religion can never come to terms with science. In sharp contrast with this widespread opinion, the authors of this paper consider that, historically, scientific reasoning and religious belief joined hands in their effort to investigate and understand reality. In fact, the present-day divorce between science and religion is nothing else than the final outcome of a gradual, long-term, and deliberately assumed process of the secularization of science. However, especially during the last decades, we have all been equally confronted with the advance of a new concern that some contemporary scientists have, namely reviewing the sphere of problems specific to the domains of investigation in which they are involved while now facing themes that are usually addressed by theological thought. It can be said that this recent development is being captured by an emerging new field of investigation within the modern scientific epistemology, Science and Religion. Against this background, the purpose of this paper is threefold: firstly, to briefly emphasize that one of the defining dimensions of the science and religion dialogue is given by the discontinuity relationship in which the knowledge acquired through scientific reason is placed in relation to the divinely revealed one; secondly, to argue that another defining dimension of the dialogue consists in the hierarchical harmony relationship that mediates the encounter between the two, thus transgressing the discontinuity and making the theology-science dialogue possible and viable; and thirdly to advocate the idea that the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) can successfully structure such a dialogue. The paper is divided into two parts: the first one addresses the problem of truth in theology and science with particular focus on the antinomic logic, while the second part aims to illustrate how the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) effectively implements together-workingness between scientific analysis and theological teaching by applying it to the field of economic science, namely the theory of rational behavior, with reference to the issue of wealth and poverty.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.87402022-10-28
Fforde, Adam, Fforde, Adam
This paper discusses possible conceptual foundations of formal models of endogenous change processes, understood here as movements between market and non-market transactions at the level of the national economy. It links but does not merge movements of resources with shifts in the pattern of transaction types. In focussing on transaction types, it deploys insights from Commons, Coase, and Godelier, to discuss how framing transaction types as the fundamental 'thing to be explained' points to the value of choices about how activity may best be organised, which requires a general concept, which can be found in Commons' 'going concern', applicable to transactions focussing on markets or not. It entails the possibility of institutional change and shifts in the location of economic resources without formal policy change. It suggests that the main requirement for such change processes are dualistic incentive patterns that operate upon institutional choice and/or development, which derive at root from experienced contrasts between the realities of existing and normatively privileged systems, and others, normatively initially deemed inferior, that offer key actors greater economic efficiency. Moves of institutional activity from one to the other are thus conceptually processes of endogenous systemic change. System in this sense is thus viewed as a coexistence of alternatives. The motivation comes directly from consideration of two very different historical moments: endogenously driven shifts 'from plan to market' in countries attempting central planning, and contemporary pressures in market economies from areas of the economy, such as services, where joint production and/or own consumption imply irremediable market failure and so non-market based economic institutions offer greater economic efficiency and may therefore attract both resources (factors of production) and investment in development of suitable transactions and their organisation.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.96672021-11-20
Mulberg, Jon, Mulberg, Jon
This paper uses Beck's concept of reflexive modernity, and a Foucauldian approach, to critique the positivist philosophy associated with contemporary conventional economics, and to show its inadequacy for the environmental emergency. The paper suggests economics is not neutral but performs an ideological function in justifying the political and social order. Economics can be deconstructed by tracing its history, thereby laying bare its philosophical and political roots. The environmental debate repeats past debates of the 1920s and 30s. By employing the 'subjugated' institutional economics approaches economics can be redefined, and the path to a truly Green New Deal can be unearthed.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86712021-11-20
Şerban, Henrieta, Şerban, Henrieta
François Levrau, Noel Clycq (eds.), Equality. Interdisciplinary Perspectives, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan/Springer Nature, 1st Edition, 2021, 356 pp
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86722021-11-20
Gürkan, Ceyhun, Gürkan, Ceyhun
International audience
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86672021-11-20
Bîgu, Dragoș, Bîgu, Dragoș
Stephen J. Macekura, The Mismeasure of Progress: Economic Growth and Its Critics, Chicago and London, The University of Chicago Press, 2020
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86742021-11-20
Petre Comşa, Fr, Munteanu, Costea, Petre Comşa, Fr, Munteanu, Costea
Many today’s scientists think that religion can never come to terms with science. In sharp contrast to the widespread opinion, the authors of this paper consider that historically scientific reasoning and religious belief joined hands in their effort to investigate and understand reality. In fact, the current divorce between science and religion is nothing else than the final outcome of a gradual long-term, and deliberately assumed process of science secularization of science. However, especially during the last decades, we have all been equally confronted with the advance of a new concern over the fact that contemporary scientists have been approaching an area of investigation that had been usually addressed by the theological thought. This recent development has generated an emerging new field of investigation of Science and Religion within modern scientific epistemology.Against this background, the purpose of this paper is three-fold: firstly, to briefly emphasize that one of the defining dimensions of the dialogue between science and religion is given by the discontinuity, in which, the knowledge acquired through scientific reasoning is placed in relation to the divinely revealed knowledge; secondly, to argue that another defining dimension of the dialogue consists in the hierarchical harmony mediating the encounter between the two, thus transgressing the discontinuity and making the dialogue between theology and science possible and viable; and thirdly, to advocate the idea that the apodictic method (based on antinomic logic) can successfully structure such a dialogue.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86652021-11-20
Reinke, Rouven, Reinke, Rouven
Opponents of mainstream economics have not yet called attention to the lack of in-depth examination of the general scientific conception of modern economics. However, economic science cannot consistently fulfil the epistemological and ontological requirements of the scientific standards underlying this conception. What can be scientifically recognized as true cannot be answered, neither through the actual ontological structure of the object of observation nor through a methodological demarcation. These limitations necessarily lead to the claim for both a pragmatic and a radical methodological pluralism.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86642021-11-20
Cendejas Bueno, José Luis, Cendejas Bueno, José Luis
Following Thomas Aquinas, Francisco de Vitoria's analysis of justice in exchanges takes place by commenting on the corresponding questions of the Summa Theologica. The identification of the just price with that of common estimation occurs under a sufficient concurrence of sellers and buyers. A high level of concurrence limits the ability to take advantage of the need on the other side of the market. This fact guaranties a full consent of the parties involved in trading. Under conditions of market power or when some authority fixes a legal price, just price should also be taken as a normative ideal.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.86612020-11-19
Şerban-Oprescu, George, Şerban-Oprescu, George
International audience
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107442020-11-19
Yalcintas, Altug, Yalcintas, Altug
Until the 1990s, the most used research and teaching materials for economists were print journal articles and print books. Since the Internet was commercialized in the 1990s, economists have used digital technologies in research and teaching. Journal articles and books are now more easily accessed. Online subscription systems allow economists to acquire electronic study and research materials in real time. Researchers can access a wealth of teaching and research materials freely and openly. In this essay [1], I focus on Wilfred Dolfsma and Ioana Negru’s The Ethical Formation of Economists (Dolfsma and Negru 2019) and claim that digital economics research requires a global understanding of ethics consistent with the values of scholarly practices. In the absence of scientific ethics, digital tools and software can harm the members of scholarly communities internationally and become a source of scientific misconduct. Economics should be taught as part of a system of scientific ethics.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107422020-11-19
Pătruţi, Alexandru, Pătruţi, Alexandru
International audience
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107452019-11-19
Heise, Arne, Heise, Arne
In this paper, Ludwick Fleck’s philosophy and sociology of science will be briefly outlined in order to establish a ‘theory of the resilience of scientific misapprehension’. This theory will be use in order to gain insights into the modes of operation of defence and resilience of modern neoclassical economics in the face of recent harsh critique by singling out a case of extreme deviation of theoretical prediction from empirical evidence: minimum wages’ impact on employment.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107292019-11-19
Söderbaum, Peter, Söderbaum, Peter
The challenge of sustainable development can be approached from different angles. In this essay it is argued that one also needs to examine the present close to monopoly position of neoclassical economic theory at university departments of economics in many parts of the world. An open debate is needed about paradigms in economics as well as ideological orientations.An alternative to neoclassical theory is outlined where individuals and organizations are regarded as political actors, each guided by an ideological orientation or mission. Reference is made to the 17 UN sustainable development goals suggesting that impacts need to be seen in multidimensional terms and an alternative definition of economics as “multidimensional management of limited resources in a democratic society” is proposed. It is argued that economics need to move away from its technocracy-oriented tendencies to democracy-oriented approaches. This is exemplified by a move away from neoclassical Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) to Positional Analysis as approach to decision-making and sustainability assessment.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107302019-05-13
Piqué, Pilar, Piqué, Pilar
This paper aims to address two research questions that have not been sufficiently examined by specialized studies of the intellectual history of Adam Smith. The first question asks why Smith, after developing his theory of sympathy in the first editions of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, started working on a theory of jurisprudence and ended up writing The Wealth of Nations. The second question asks why Smith, after writing and republishing The Wealth of Nations, asserted that he could not complete his theory of jurisprudence and incorporated a new part dedicated to virtue ethics in the last edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1790. The paper shows that: 1) after developing his theory of sympathy in the first edition of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith stated that a theory of jurisprudence was necessary to form rules of justice that guarantee social order, and in the search for that theory he ended up writing The Wealth of Nations; 2) in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith was devoted to studying the development of commerce in modern society and the conduct of the mercantile individual who pursued his own interest, and was incapable of elaborating on those general principles of justice that would ensure social harmony. Smith then delved into virtue ethics in order to recommend virtuous conduct that encourages mercantile individuals to become good citizens. The paper concludes by contending that economics would benefit from a better understanding of the relationship between political economy, jurisprudence and ethics in the work of Adam Smith. Specifically, economics would broaden in scope of study and contribute to larger debates about the past, present and future of modern civilization.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107242019-05-13
Peacock, Mark, S, Peacock, Mark, S
This paper examines Amartya Sen's concept of sympathy and the oversimplified, ambiguous and sometimes erroneous interpretations of this concept by Sen's interpreters. In the first section, two types of sympathy can be found in Sen's 'Rational fools' essay-a contemplative and an active type of which the former has conceptual primacy. Following this, active sympathy is examined to ascertain what Sen means by 'actions based on sympathy' and why he deems these to be 'egoistic'. Sen's understanding of egoism means that sympathy is not straightforwardly assimilable to the orthodox theory of rational choice. The section after that analyses the place of altruism in Sen's work and ascertains that altruism can be aligned both with sympathy and commitment, depending on the definition one uses. The final section compares sympathy and commitment and establishes that they are to be distinguished, not according to the welfare a person expects to obtain from making choices, but according to the reason which motivates that person to make a choice.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107232018-11-19
Popovici, Alexandru, A, Popovici, Alexandru, A
Mises’s work of ‘Human action’ is analyzed in relation to the methodological conceptions of his predecessor C. Menger and of his successor F. von Hayek. Also, it is placed in the continuation of one of his previous works and in contrast to one that followed it. Some of his ideas can be better understood in such a way, while others show themselves as contradictory. It results that his attempt to combine apriorism with scientific realism explains some of major difficulties of Mises’s argumentation.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.107182018-11-19
Kalimeris, Panos, Kalimeris, Panos
Indeed, the artificial entity ‘Homo-Economicus’ plays a central role in modern neoclassical economic theory. Maybe an illegitimate child of markets’ self-regulation doctrine and the emerging rationalism - professed by the post-modern realms of neoliberalism and the ongoing globalization process - this theoretical abstraction is promoted as a potential prototype of human behavior. It is firmly believed, that this individualistic, self-motivated, and above all, perfectly informed ‘entity’ could, theoretically, lead the economic system into profound balance between supply and demand, consumption and production, utility maximization, and so on. The present paper consists of a criticism to the mainstream prototype of Homo-Economicus, with further extensions to the neoclassical paradigm. Placing this criticism in the context of ecological economics, the paper argues that the notorious rationality of Homo-Economicus seems to be vanished in the deadlock of a futile race towards non-renewable natural resources depletion and increasing environmental externalities. Finally, a brief review of alternative theoretical frameworks and evidence from institutional and behavioral economics, delineates an emerging pressing request for a paradigm change.
DOI: 10.46298/jpe.10717