Emerging Engagement between Philosophy and Philosophy of Economics: Parfit, Simon, and Sen

John Davis

No 2024-05, Working Papers and Research from Marquette University, Center for Global and Economic Studies and Department of Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates philosophy’s engagement with one social science, economics, via the philosophy of economics. It first distinguishes mainstream philosophy of economics and heterodox/non-mainstream philosophy of economics, and then argues that the latter’s increasing recourse to analytical reasoning in philosophy to advance its critiques of mainstream economics points toward a new engagement between philosophy of economics and philosophy. To provide grounds for this argument, the paper discusses shared thinking of three key figures: philosophy’s Derek Parfit and from economics Herbert Simon and Amartya Sen. It argues their respective critiques of dominant ideas in their fields reflect a little discussed convergence in thinking between philosophy and economics through heterodox/non-mainstream philosophy of economics. This convergence is argued to reflect a shared commitment to one philosophical conception of temporal sequences, namely, the past-present-future as opposed to the before-after sequence. Philosophy’s future engagement with economics as a social science, the paper concludes, builds on the role this conception plays in both in the future.

Keywords: philosophy of economics; mainstream; heterodox/non-mainstream; Parfit; Simon; Sen; temporal science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-pke
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mrq:wpaper:2024-05

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