Objectivity in Economics and the Problem of the Individual

John Davis

No 2023-01, Working Papers and Research from Marquette University, Center for Global and Economic Studies and Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper addresses objectivity in economics. It criticizes a closed science, ‘view from nowhere’ conception of economics and defends an open science, ‘view from somewhere’ conception of objective science. It ascribes the first conception to mainstream economics, associates it with its principle practices – reductionist modeling, formalization, limited interdisciplinarity, and value neutrality – and argues their foundation is the Homo economicus individual conception. Two problematic consequences of adopting this stance are: (i) value blindness regarding the range and complexity of human values; (ii) fatalism regarding human behavior associated with employing a tenseless representation of time. The paper contrasts the principle practices of an open science, view from science conception – complexity modeling, mixed methods, strong relationships to other disciplines, and value diversity – and argues their foundation is a socially and historically embedded economics individual conception that avoids the value blindness and fatalism problems.

Keywords: objectivity in science; science practices; Homo economicus; value-blindness; fatalism; science bubble (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://epublications.marquette.edu/econ_workingpapers/89 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Objectivity in economics and the problem of the individual (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2023-01

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers and Research from Marquette University, Center for Global and Economic Studies and Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Andrew G. Meyer ().