What philosophy is needed in economics and economics education? Philosophy as reflective and critical thinking

Giancarlo Ianulardo and Aldo Stella

Chapter 2 in Handbook of Teaching Philosophy to Economists, 2025, pp 11-28 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Aristotle, in his Protrepticus, famously defends the necessity of philosophising, since any alternative to it will always fail; the alternative implies that one would have to argue against philosophising, but that would still be philosophising. Although economics and economic education have their origins in the reflections of important philosophers from Hume to Smith, in the last 150 years, from Marshall onwards, they have become increasingly autonomous to the extent that philosophy no longer plays a significant role in them. In this chapter, we try to answer two questions: why philosophy is needed and what philosophy is needed in economics. We argue that economics needs philosophy, understood precisely as the reflective and critical thinking that alone enables the economist and the student to become aware of the limits of the assumptions inherent in economic discourse. We believe that this conception of philosophy can overcome the state of “permanent immaturity” (Kant) that is the danger of a mechanical teaching of economics, based on unquestioned and unquestionable assumptions that only need to be consistently applied to increase the scope of knowledge.

Keywords: Reflective thinking; Critical thinking; Reasoning; Subjectivity; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035336814
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