What’s the Point of Philosophy of Economics?

And What Should Be in a Syllabus on the Subject

Introduction note: This week I’m starting to teach. So, to change a bit from the usual topics, here is a short post that contemplates my approach to a new class I will teach this year.

For the first time this year, I’ll have the opportunity to teach a seminar on the philosophy of economics to Sciences Po students – there is a campus in Reims where the Africa and North America minors of the Bachelor’s degree of Sciences Po are hosted. The seminar will be followed by second-year students who are presumably interested in the topic (as with all Sciences Po seminars, it is optional), but who have no solid background neither in economics nor in philosophy. While I’ve been working on the syllabus (the seminar happens during the Spring semester, so all comments are welcome), this has forced me to reflect on what can be taught to non-specialized students but also on what’s the value brought by this field of research and how to make it appealing. Here are some reflections that came to my mind in the process.

A not very good illustration of what the philosophy of economics is!

I should start by mentioning a view of mine that – I think – is not very popular among my historians/philosophers of economics colleagues. I’ve been thinking for a long that it’s not a very sensible idea to teach the history of economic thought to first-year students who have no clue what economics is about at all. This is particularly true in the context of “introduction to economics” or “principles of economics” types of class where, in France at least, it is still customary to mix the history of ideas (by surveying the classical economists, Marx, Keynes, …) with the teaching of economic principles. In my experience, this only confuses students, many of them ending up believing that the job of economists is… to talk about Smith, Marx, and Keynes. I’ve been teaching principles of economics to first-year students for 10 years now (I will start my eleventh year this Thursday) and after 2-3 years, I decided to put aside historical considerations as far as possible (it’s difficult to discuss principles of macroeconomics without mentioning Keynes at all!). Similarly, though I definitely think that all undergraduate economics students should have a history of economics class in their curricula, I’m against putting it too soon. I think the point of such a class for undergraduate students is to put what they have learned about economics in a historical perspective, such as to understand for instance where the principles they have been taught are coming from and how they have evolved. Obviously, this requires that students already have a solid knowledge of economics.

In general, I used to think that the same applies to the philosophy of economics. Acknowledging that the typical Sciences Po students’ knowledge of economics is limited (they have a solid course of principles of economics in their first year, inspired by the CORE project, but barely more), how do I reconcile this fact with this long-held belief? Well, it’s not so easy but I think that, as far as the philosophy of economics can help to reflect on the role of economists in society, it is useful for undergraduate students who have a minimal but not large knowledge of economics.

There are some – not really interesting – debates about what philosophy of economics really is and even how to call it properly (“philosophy of economics,” “economic philosophy,” “philosophy & economics”).[1] To simplify, we can have a broad and a narrow conception. On the broad conception, the philosophy of economics is everything that lies at the intersection of economics and philosophy. This is very large indeed, as it includes not only classical philosophical analysis of economists’ methods and economic knowledge) but also all kinds of work where economic tools are used to produce philosophical insights. The narrow conception more classically makes the philosophy of economics a branch of the philosophy of science. If you browse the syllabus, you’ll see that it bends toward the narrow conception (even though Part III sometimes hints at the broad conception), but twist it significantly. For the same reasons as those exposed above for the history of economics, I don’t think that a philosophy-of-economics-as-philosophy-of-science class would be very interesting for second-year students who, for most of them, will not pursue a scientific career, even less in economics. So, the idea is to make use of resources available to reflect on a general topic that should be relevant for any students, especially those with a Sciences Po profile. That’s why there is no mention in the syllabus of the traditional big Methodological (capital M) issues that are classically addressed by philosophers of economics and that you find in every philosophy of science textbook: what is science? Is economics a science? How does scientific knowledge grow? What is causation? And so forth.[2] The focus is rather on understanding what economists do and, even more importantly, why they do it.

That explains the structure of the course I’ve opted for. Basically, among social scientists, economists are quite unique in the way that they try at the same time to explain and evaluate the world. Sure, other social scientists also do this, but in economics, this is done through a not straightforward articulation between a positive and a normative approach – as I used to say, nobody has ever heard of “normative sociology” or “normative anthropology.” So, the idea is first to understand how economists explain the world by relying on the rationality principle and the use of models and experiments. Then, the focus switches to the way economists evaluate the world, first through the framework of welfare economics but also with other normative tools and theories. Of course, there is a link between the two dimensions and the class should help to reveal it. In the end, taught from this perspective, I hope that the philosophy of economics can be a valuable pedagogical approach to give students a better understanding of the nature of economic knowledge and its contribution to the governance of society.

Obviously, there are holes in this syllabus. If I had more time (the seminar is 24 hours), I would have added a discussion of measurement and causality issues, as well as applied topics such as environmental or financial crises. This would form a solid basis for a philosophy of economics textbook for undergraduate students!

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Ending note: There are many interesting syllabi of philosophy of economics on the web. I particularly like the one of my colleagues Emrah Aydinonat and Michiru Nagatsu at Helsinki. Their approach is slightly different from mine but it has nonethless been very inspiring.

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[1] I’ve myself modestly contributed to this debate: Cyril Hédoin, “Philosophy and Economics: Recent Issues and Perspectives. Introduction to the Special Issue,” Revue d’économie Politique 128, no. 2 (May 22, 2018): 177–89.

[2] There are very good books that do that. My personal preference goes for D. Wade Hands, Reflection without Rules: Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory (Cambridge University Press, 2001).