Ecumenical foundations? On the coexistence of Austrian and neoclassical views on utility

Marcin Senderski

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Utility has long been a debatable concept, with many competing interpretations. The Austrian school and the neoclassical school, however broad these categories may seem, have made the most substantial and, by the same token, the most contrasting contributions to the theory of value. The paper’s goal is not to adjudicate past arguments or observe the evolution of the theory, but rather to resolve contemporary misunderstandings. The references are made to such trouble spots as subjectivism vs. objectivism, cardinality vs. ordinality, and mathematical formalism vs. verbal formalism. Both schools entrenched themselves in their views long ago. Nevertheless, this paper shows that discussing utility on common ground and on the basis of shared presumptions is not necessarily the melody of the future. The paper is concluded with recommendations on how the current dissent may be attenuated.

Keywords: Austria; Austrian school; economic thought; heterodox economics; neoclassical school; utility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 B53 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education 4.5(2014): pp. 354-373

Downloads: (external link)
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/67024/1/MPRA_paper_67024.pdf original version (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:pra:mprapa:67024

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany Ludwigstraße 33, D-80539 Munich, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joachim Winter ().