Facts, Values and Objectivity in Economics PDF Download
Are you looking for read ebook online? Search for your book and save it on your Kindle device, PC, phones or tablets. Download Facts, Values and Objectivity in Economics PDF full book. Access full book title Facts, Values and Objectivity in Economics by José Castro Caldas. Download full books in PDF and EPUB format.
Author: José Castro Caldas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136328637
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Get Book
Book Description
Is Economics an ‘objective’ or ‘positive’ science, independent of ethical and political positions? The financial crisis that began in 2007 gave rise to renewed doubts regarding the ‘objectivity’ of economics and brought into the public arena a debate that was previously confined to academia. A remarkable feature of the public debate on the value neutrality of economics since then was that it not only involved indictments of ideological biases in economic theory, but also the attribution of the crisis itself to the unethical orientation of economic agents, of economists acting as experts and of ‘economic science’ itself. The contributors to this volume believe that economists of all persuasions are once again compelled to probe the normative foundations of their discipline and give a public account of their doubts and conclusions.
Author: José Castro Caldas
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136328637
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 260
Get Book
Book Description
Is Economics an ‘objective’ or ‘positive’ science, independent of ethical and political positions? The financial crisis that began in 2007 gave rise to renewed doubts regarding the ‘objectivity’ of economics and brought into the public arena a debate that was previously confined to academia. A remarkable feature of the public debate on the value neutrality of economics since then was that it not only involved indictments of ideological biases in economic theory, but also the attribution of the crisis itself to the unethical orientation of economic agents, of economists acting as experts and of ‘economic science’ itself. The contributors to this volume believe that economists of all persuasions are once again compelled to probe the normative foundations of their discipline and give a public account of their doubts and conclusions.
Author: Giancarlo Marchetti
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317354672
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 440
Get Book
Book Description
This collection offers a synoptic view of current philosophical debates concerning the relationship between facts and values, bringing together a wide spectrum of contributors committed to testing the validity of this dichotomy, exploring alternatives, and assessing their implications. The assumption that facts and values inhabit distinct, unbridgeable conceptual and experiential domains has long dominated scientific and philosophical discourse, but this separation has been seriously called into question from a number of corners. The original essays here collected offer a diversity of responses to fact-value dichotomy, including contributions from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam who are rightly credited with revitalizing philosophical interest in this alleged opposition. Both they, and many of our contributors, are in agreement that the relationship between epistemic developments and evaluative attitudes cannot be framed as a conflict between descriptive and normative understanding. Each chapter demonstrates how and why contrapositions between science and ethics, between facts and values, and between objective and subjective are false dichotomies. Values cannot simply be separated from reason. Facts and Values will therefore prove essential reading for analytic and continental philosophers alike, for theorists of ethics and meta-ethics, and for philosophers of economics and law.
Author: Peter Machamer
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN: 0822970864
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 327
Get Book
Book Description
Collection of essays that identify the values crucial to science, distinguish some of the criteria that can be used for value identification, and elaborate the conditions for warranting certain values as necessary or central to scientific research.
Author: Hilary Putnam
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674013808
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 205
Get Book
Book Description
If philosophy has any business in the world, it is the clarification of our thinking and the clearing away of ideas that cloud the mind. In this book, one of the world's preeminent philosophers takes issue with an idea that has found an all-too-prominent place in popular culture and philosophical thought: the idea that while factual claims can be rationally established or refuted, claims about value are wholly subjective, not capable of being rationally argued for or against. Although it is on occasion important and useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, the distinction becomes, Hilary Putnam argues, positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between the objective and the purely "subjective." Putnam explores the arguments that led so much of the analytic philosophy of language, metaphysics, and epistemology to become openly hostile to the idea that talk of value and human flourishing can be right or wrong, rational or irrational; and by which, following philosophy, social sciences such as economics have fallen victim to the bankrupt metaphysics of Logical Positivism. Tracing the problem back to Hume's conception of a "matter of fact" as well as to Kant's distinction between "analytic" and "synthetic" judgments, Putnam identifies a path forward in the work of Amartya Sen. Lively, concise, and wise, his book prepares the way for a renewed mutual fruition of philosophy and the social sciences.
Author: Luigi Einaudi
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315457911
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 318
Get Book
Book Description
Luigi Einaudi (1874-1961) was a leading liberal economist, economic historian and political figure. This book provides the English-speaking world with a first critical edition of Einaudi’s – hitherto unpublished – rewriting of one of his most unique and thoughtful essays. The relevance of this essay is crucial from several perspectives: history and methodology of economic thought, role of economics and its relation to other disciplines and to social values, role of economists in the public sphere, while also encompassing the discourse on man and the economist as a "whole man". The critical edition of On Abstract and Historical Hypotheses and on Value Judgments in Economic Sciences includes a comprehensive introduction and afterword. An extensive reappraisal of this newly discovered essay will help to cast light on Einaudi’s uniqueness and originality within and beyond the Italian tradition in public finance, thereby also illuminating his attempt to provide an epistemological account of his long lasting enquiry into the causes of good and bad polities. This book is of great interest to those who study economic theory and philosophy, as well as history of economic thought, public economics and legal and political philosophy.
Author: Stephen Gaukroger
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191642096
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 129
Get Book
Book Description
- Is objectivity possible? - Can there be objectivity in matters of morals, or tastes? - What would a truly objective account of the world be like? - Is everything subjective, or relative? - Are moral judgments objective or culturally relative? Objectivity is both an essential and elusive philosophical concept. An account is generally considered to be objective if it attempts to capture the nature of the object studied without judgement of a conscious entity or subject. Objectivity stands in contrast to subjectivity: an objective account is impartial, one which could ideally be accepted by any subject, because it does not draw on any assumptions, prejudices, or values of particular subjects. Stephen Gaukroger shows that it is far from clear that we can resolve moral or aesthetic disputes in this way and it has often been argued that such an approach is not always appropriate for disciplines that deal with human, rather than natural, phenomena. Moreover, even in those cases where we seek to be objective, it may be difficult to judge what a truly objective account would look like, and whether it is achievable. This Very Short Introduction demonstrates that there are a number of common misunderstandings about what objectivity is, and explores the theoretical and practical problems of objectivity by assessing the basic questions raised by it. As well as considering the core philosophical issues, Gaukroger also deals with the way in which particular understandings of objectivity impinge on social research, science, and art. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.
Author: Andre Orlean
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262549581
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 361
Get Book
Book Description
An argument that conceiving of economic value as a social force makes it possible to develop a new and more powerful theory of market behavior. With the advent of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, the economics profession itself entered into a crisis of legitimacy from which it has yet to emerge. Despite the obviousness of their failures, however, economists continue to rely on the same methods and to proceed from the same underlying assumptions. André Orléan challenges the neoclassical paradigm in this book, with a new way of thinking about perhaps its most fundamental concept, economic value. Orléan argues that value is not bound up with labor, or utility, or any other property that preexists market exchange. Economic value, he contends, is a social force whose vast sphere of influence, amounting to a kind of empire, extends to every aspect of economic life. Markets are based on the identification of value with money, and exchange value can only be regarded as a social institution. Financial markets, for example, instead of defining an extrinsic, objective value for securities, act as a mechanism for arriving at a reference price that will be accepted by all investors. What economists must therefore study, Orléan urges, is the hold that value has over individuals and how it shapes their perceptions and behavior. Awarded the prestigious Prix Paul Ricoeur on its original publication in France in 2011, The Empire of Value has been substantially revised and enlarged for this edition, with an entirely new section discussing the financial crisis of 2007–2008.
Author: Daniel E. Saros
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317803191
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 293
Get Book
Book Description
The failure of command central planning in the twentieth century has led to a general disillusionment within the socialist movement worldwide. Some alternatives to capitalism have been proposed since the end of the Cold War, but none has offered an alternative form of economic calculation. This book explains how modern information technology may be used to implement a new method of economic calculation that could bring an end to capitalism and make socialism possible. In this book, the author critically examines a number of socialist proposals that have been put forward since the end of the Cold War. It is shown that although these proposals have many merits, their inability effectively to incorporate the benefits of information technology into their models has limited their ability to solve the problem of socialist construction. The final section of the book proposes an entirely new model of socialist development, based on a "needs profile" that makes it possible to convert the needs of large numbers of people into data that can be used as a guide for resource allocation. This analysis makes it possible to rethink and carefully specify the conditions necessary for the abolition of capital and consequently the requirements for socialist revolution and, ultimately, communist society. Information Technology and Socialist Construction will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, the history of economic thought, labour economics and industrial economics.
Author: Harold Kincaid
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190294795
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256
Get Book
Book Description
It has long been thought that science is our best hope for realizing objective knowledge, but that, to deliver on this promise, it must be value free. Things are not so simple, however, as recent work in science studies makes clear. The contributors to this volume investigate where and how values are involved in science, and examine the implications of this involvement for ideals of objectivity.
Author: Frank H. Knight
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226446950
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 448
Get Book
Book Description
Frank H. Knight (1885-1972) was a central figure—many say the dominant influence—in the development of the "Chicago School of Economics" at the University of Chicago in the 1930s and 1940s, where he taught future Nobel laureates Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, George Stigler, and many other notable scholars. It was Knight's embedded skepticism about the reach of economic knowledge that set the stage for the laissez-faire economics that matured at the University in the 1950s and 1960s. But as important as Knight's technical economic contributions were, he never strayed far from his broad philosophical interests and concern for the state of modern liberal democracy. Ross B. Emmett's selection of Knight's essays is the first to offer a comprehensive picture of the work of this notable social scientist over the span of his career. Included are not only Knight's most influential writings, but also a number of uncollected papers which have not previously been widely accessible. These essays illustrate Knight's views on the central debates regarding economics, social science, ethics, education, and modern liberalism. Volume 1: "What is Truth" in Economics? contains fifteen of Knight's papers up through 1940. Volume 2: Laissez Faire: Pro and Con includes fourteen of Knight's papers from 1940 through 1967, including "Socialism: The Nature of the Problem" and "The Sickness of Liberal Society." These twenty-nine essays together stand not only as a monument to one of economics' most significant and original thinkers, but will also serve as an invaluable resource for economists, philosophers, and political scientists interested in the development of the western liberal tradition.
