How did modern man come to believe in the object of the economy? What hopes made us accept scientific authority about this illusive thing? What kinds of persons were attracted by objective knowledge in economic discourse? And how does this knowledge guide our economic life? The Making of the Economy tackles such questions surrounding the modern notion of the economy with a fresh look from phenomenological philosophy. In a historical narrative of economic discourses, Till Duppe shows that only due to the scientific culture of economics we speak of an economy. Economic science made the economy. Our economic experiences alone do not trigger an interest in the economy-which makes Husserl's case for the "forgetfulness of the life-world." Duppe's historical narrative focuses on the emergence of formal economic analysis out of a series of successive life-worlds, or concrete historical situations, an approach which generates a new substantive understanding of both the history of economics and the current discourse of crisis surrounding economics. The book will appeal to historians and philosophers of the social sciences, as well as scholars of history, philosophy, and economics.
How did modern man come to believe in the object of the economy? What hopes made us accept scientific authority about this illusive thing? What kinds of persons were attracted by objective knowledge in economic discourse? And how does this knowledge guide our economic life? The Making of the Economy tackles such questions surrounding the modern notion of the economy with a fresh look from phenomenological philosophy. In a historical narrative of economic discourses, Till Duppe shows that only due to the scientific culture of economics we speak of an economy. Economic science made the economy. Our economic experiences alone do not trigger an interest in the economy-which makes Husserl's case for the "forgetfulness of the life-world." Duppe's historical narrative focuses on the emergence of formal economic analysis out of a series of successive life-worlds, or concrete historical situations, an approach which generates a new substantive understanding of both the history of economics and the current discourse of crisis surrounding economics. The book will appeal to historians and philosophers of the social sciences, as well as scholars of history, philosophy, and economics.
Chapter 1 Introduction Part 2 Part 1. Philosophy Chapter 3 Chapter 1. Science and the Life-World Chapter 4 Chapter 2. Formalism and How Economists Forgot the Life-World Chapter 5 Chapter 3. Structuralism and How Economists Made the Economy Part 6 Part 2. History Chapter 7 Chapter 4. The Pre-History of the Economy: The Oikonomia Chapter 8 Chapter 5. The Urstiftung of the Economy in the 17th Century Chapter 9 Chapter 6. The Battles for the Economy since 1848 Chapter 10 Chapter 7. The Diminishing Weight of Meaning of the Economy during the Socialist Calculation Debate Chapter 11 Chapter 8. The Secret Engineering of the Free Economy during the Formalist Revolution Chapter 12 Chapter 9. The Waning of the Economy Today Chapter 13 Conclusions Chapter 14 References
Till Düppe is scientific researcher at the University of Hamburg.
In his illuminating and provocative book The Making of the Economy,
Till Du¨ppe examines the economics profession, diagnoses a lack of
confidence in its methods and declares the profession to be in
crisis. ... I have only been able to give a sense of the sheer
enormity of the ground covered by this highly engaging book:
hermeneutics, prescientific economics, the scientific attitude of
Gerard Debreu, economics imperialism and much besides. Du¨ppe has
performed a valuable service in providing motivation for reflecting
on how economists’ epistemic authority is actually used, and in
providing a structure for organizing these reflections. His book
vividly illustrates the benefits of bringing together history and
philosophy to evaluate economics, an approach John Davis (2012) has
persuasively argued economic methodologists should adopt. It
encourages one to pose some hitherto-unasked questions: Would the
end of economics restore meaning to our intellectual projects?
Would this breakup make it more or less likely that opportunistic
uses of epistemic authority would be successfully challenged? Put
bluntly, would it liberate or oppress us?
*Journal of Economic Methodology*
The intended audience for the book consists of both philosophers
and economists, with Düppe aiming to construct the book so as to
make phenomenology amenable to economists while the discreetness of
economic theory is made more transparent to non-specialists. ...
And one of the greatest virtues of this book, from the perspective
of a fellow Continental philosopher interested in but by no means
trained in economics, is the historical narrative Düppe constructs
and which weaves in and out of general assumptions and minute but
substantial points of theoretical detail. ... Düppe’s book makes a
significant contribution towards a better understanding of the very
thing that seems to dominate our lives yet remains furthest from
our understanding. Moreover, for any scholar or student wishing to
have a competent, critical, and accessible overview of economic
history, especially the postneoclassical, this book remains a
much-needed resource
*Philosophy in Review*
As its subtitle indicates, this book is a reflection on the idea of
economics as ‘science’ from the vantage point of the
phenomenological tradition in philosophy. Düppe asks a two sided
question: what in the life-world creates the opportunity for the
expertise that might go by the name of ‘economic science’; and what
interests have led would-be economists to respond. The book is very
interesting from a number of vantage points within economics
itself, giving depth and perspective to themes in the history of
economics, to economic theory and methodology, and to contemporary
conversations about what ‘economics’ is (or is not).
*Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics*
The book is highly original, thought-provoking, and rich in its
survey of the entire history of economics. ... [Düppe] is surely to
be commended for his impressive knowledge of the history of
economics, which exceeds that of not a few more senior scholars.
And his writing a whole history also prompts us to ask: where are
the ambitious histories of economics among the publications of
historians of economics today?
*Journal of the History of Economic Thought*
This is a remarkable book at many levels, erudite and bold and, in
some passages, brilliant. . . .[Düppe] emphasizes that human beings
produce economics and yet the experiences of economists, their
beliefs, values, struggles, are suppressed if not entirely erased
so as to create the appearance that the science of economics is
objective and anonymous. . . .[D]espite the immense success of
economics in filling the classrooms (some thirty thousand American
students major in economics each year), almost everyone seems to
sense that economic theory is irrelevant to what matters. Read this
book and judge for yourself. Every page is bound to provoke
interesting thoughts even if the jury is still out.
*History of Political Economy*
These days, intellectual historians rarely construct their books
self-consciously so as to exemplify a pre-existent well-developed
philosophy of knowledge. Till Düppe bucks that trend, portraying
the history of modern neoclassical economics as an illustration of
Husserl's Phenomenology. Continental philosophy meets the history
of Arrow-Debreu general equilibrium theory, and is contrasted with
Husserl's inquiry into the mathematization of nature by Galileo. It
sounds dry, but Düppe's writing style is conversational, and he
makes sparks fly. His vision of the future of the economics
profession is grave. The shopworn complaint concerning the
unrealism of neoclassical mathematical economics has just
experienced future shock.
*Philip Mirowski, University of Notre Dame*
Now more than ever — after the Global Financial Crisis, in the
midst of the Second Great Depression — it is necessary to think
critically about the relationship between economics and science, to
interrogate the epistemic authority of mainstream economics. Till
Düppe, in his The Making of the Economy, bravely takes up that
challenge; bringing together history and phenomenology, he shows
that mainstream economists 'made the economy' by adopting a
distanced attitude, a culture of suspicion, toward their object of
study. But, along the way — through quantification and formalism,
by invoking science as the beginning and end of economic practice,
by forgetting about the life-world — the discipline of economics
lost its reason for being. But Düppe does not mourn the loss of
mainstream economists' scientific authority. It was of no help to
them anyway. Instead, he offers the only possible way of moving
forward and thus of reviving interest in economic life: "Economists
of the World-Disperse."
*David F. Ruccio, University of Notre Dame*
Any book that concludes with the argument that economic science
"must fall for the sake of social responsibility and for the sake
of moral integrity in economic discourse” is going to be
provocative This book is that, but it is also informed and
insightful, which makes it a worthwhile read.
*David Colander, Middlebury College*
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