Definitions in economics: farewell to essentialism

Cristian Frasser and Gabriel Guzmán

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2023, vol. 30, issue 3, 228-244

Abstract: There is an essentialist view that requires one to specify the set of necessary and sufficient properties of the things that exist when establishing definitions. The endorsement of essentialism for definitions in economics has been largely motivated by the Taxonomic Tower of Babel (TTB), which encompasses two intellectual fears. The fear of scientific aphasia is the fear that scientific progress is hampered because economists do not agree on the definitions they use. The fear of nihilism refers to the fear of the advent of an unmanageable proliferation of definitions of the same term. We advocate the abandonment of essentialism by offering three arguments. First, essentialism seems impracticable in economics because essences are either mostly unavailable or useless. Second, the TTB, rather than a bug, is a feature of economics. Third, the TTB does not necessarily display the negative implications presumably associated with its existence.

Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2023.2225171

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