Some philosophy of economics, or foundations of economics, if you prefer.The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions”, but to make propositions clear.Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.112It is not as though the deficiencies of conventional economic models are unknown or even even to be further elaborated. Nor it is a matter of creating another theory of the same type, that is, one that is based on "microfoundations," involving the fallacy of composition, or is
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Some philosophy of economics, or foundations of economics, if you prefer.
The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts.Philosophy is not a theory but an activity.
A philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.
The result of philosophy is not a number of “philosophical propositions”, but to make propositions clear.
Philosophy should make clear and delimit sharply the thoughts which otherwise are, as it were, opaque and blurred.
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.112
It is not as though the deficiencies of conventional economic models are unknown or even even to be further elaborated. Nor it is a matter of creating another theory of the same type, that is, one that is based on "microfoundations," involving the fallacy of composition, or is designed to be mathematically tractable by ignoring significant causal factors, or oversimplifies complexity by ignoring uncertainty, or does not define key terms operationally, etc.
Heterodox economists and even some conventional economists, Paul Romer, for instance, have elucidated many reasons that such approaches to economic modeling are insufficient.
A more realistic approach needs to be adopted, which means one that is more practical in its methodological assumptions, more comprehensive in its substantive assumptions and more modest in its aims.
At minimum, this means adopting an institution and accounting-based approach instead of a strictly axiomatic one. For starters, a stock-flow consistent approach such as advanced by Wynne Godley based on accounting.
Does it — really — take a model to beat a model? No!
Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University