PHILOSOPHY
OF ECONOMICS EDUCATION
1.0: INTRODUCTION:
1.1: What Is
Economics?
Though its ancient etymology defines it as “the
science of wealth” its meaning has expanded over time, and it is now a social
science that studies the production, distribution and consumption of goods and
services.
The term economics is
derived from economic science and the word economic is shortened from
economical or derived from the French word économique or directly from the
Latin word oeconomicus "of domestic economy". This in turn comes from
the Ancient Greek οἰκονομικός
(oikonomikos), "practiced in the management of a household or family"
and therefore "frugal, thrifty", which in turn comes from οἰκονομία (oikonomia) "household
management" which in turn comes from οἶκος
(oikos "house") and νόμος (nomos, "custom" or "law").
(Harper, Douglas, 2007.)
The discipline was
renamed in the late 19th century, primarily due to Alfred Marshall, from
"political economy" to "economics" as a shorter term for
"economic science". At that time, it became more open to rigorous
thinking and made increased use of mathematics, which helped support efforts to
have it accepted as a science and as a separate discipline outside of political
science and other social sciences. Rhona. (2010).
Economics is a study
of man in the ordinary business of life. It enquires how he gets his income and
how he uses it. Thus, it is on the one side, the study of wealth and on the
other and more important side, a part of the study of man. (Marshall, Alfred
(1890). Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents
and how economies work. Microeconomics analyzes basic elements in the economy,
including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes
of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms,
buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyzes the entire economy in terms
of aggregated production, consumption,
savings, and investment, likewise
the issues affecting it, including
unemployment of resources (labour, capital, and land), inflation, economic
growth, and the public policies that address these issues (monetary, fiscal,
and other policies).
Economic analysis can
be applied throughout society, in business, finance, health care, and
government. Economic analysis is sometimes also applied to such diverse
subjects as crime, education social institutions, war, science, and the environment.
(www.wikipedia.com)
1.2: What is
Philosophy?
Philosophy is defined as the use of reason in
understanding such things as the nature of the real world and existence, the
use and limits of knowledge, and the principles of moral judgment (https://dictionary.cambridge.org)
1.3: Economics
and Philosophy.
The disciplines of economics and philosophy each
possess their own special analytical methods, whose combination is powerful and
fruitful. Economics and Philosophy aims to promote their mutual enrichment by
publishing articles and book reviews in all areas linking these subjects.
Today, philosophy and economics, heavily
overlap in basically three subject which can be regarded respectively as
branches of action theory, ethics (or normative social and political
philosophy), and philosophy of science. Economic theories of rationality,
welfare, and social choice defend substantive philosophical theses often
informed by relevant philosophical literature and of evident interest to those
interested in action theory, philosophical psychology, and social and political
philosophy. (www.wikipedia.com).
First of all, there
are questions related to philosophy of science – it is economics of science,
how does it explain things, why is it that it is not as successful as other
sciences, and indeed general questions about whether a science of human beings,
of society is possible in the same way as we can have a science of physics or
chemistry.
Second area of
overlap is normative, ethical. Economists are certainly concerned about how to
make people’s lives better. Economics is clearly very important to how well
people live, and there is a real question about whether economics as a science
can be divorced from moral questions concerning human wellbeing, what are the
proper social policies to be followed.
The third area of
overlap is much more recent than the others and that concerns the theory of
rationality, because contemporary economics is really built around a theory of rationality
and the model, or the picture of human beings that economists rely on is a
picture of human beings as rational, where rationality is understood in a
formal, or, rather, narrow way. Hausman, (2018).
The question usually
addressed in any subfield of philosophy (the philosophy of X) is "what is
X?" A philosophical approach to the question "what is
economics?" is less likely to produce an answer than it is to produce a
survey of the definitional and territorial difficulties and controversies.
(www.wikipedia.com).
Traditionally,
philosophy of economics really goes back to the beginning of modern economics,
what can be found in Adam Smith’s reflections on a nature of what he is doing.
The first really systematic reflection on the nature of economics was in the
1830s in England, and economist, who is now not perfectly known by the name of
Nassau Senior and then a very great economist and philosopher John Stuart Mill
wrote on the scientific methodology of economics and also a bit on the
relationship between economics and ethics, the issues about rationality do not
arise until modern times. Hausman, (2018).
In the early modern
period, those who reflected on the sources of a country’s wealth recognized
that the annual harvest, the quantities of goods manufactured, and the products
of mines and fisheries depend on facts about nature, individual labor and
enterprise, tools and what we would call “capital goods”, and state and social
regulations. Trade also seemed advantageous, at least if the terms were good enough.
It took no conceptual leap to recognize that manufacturing and farming could be
improved and that some taxes and tariffs might be less harmful to productive
activities than others. But to formulate the idea that there is such a thing as
“the economy” with regularities that can be investigated requires a bold
further step.(Hausman, (2018).
Lionel Robbins
defined economics as “the science which studies human behavior as a
relationship between ends and scarce means which have alternative uses” (An
Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, 1932, p. 15). Robbins
holds the view that economics is not concerned with production, exchange,
distribution, or consumption as such. It is instead concerned with an aspect of
all human action. Here economics goes beyond its traditional domain to other
issues like elections.
1.4: Macroecomonics, Microecomonics and Econometrics:
Microeconomics examines how entities, forming a
market structure, interact within a market to create a market system. These entities
include private and public players with various classifications, typically
operating under scarcity of tradable units and light government regulation. The
item traded may be a tangible product such as apples or a service such as
repair services, legal counsel, or entertainment. (Wikipedia.com)
In theory, in a free
market the aggregates (sum of) of quantity demanded by buyers and quantity
supplied by sellers may reach economic equilibrium over time in reaction to
price changes; in practice, various issues may prevent equilibrium, and any
equilibrium reached may not necessarily be morally equitable. For example, if
the supply of healthcare services is limited by external factors, the
equilibrium price may be unaffordable for many who desire it but cannot pay for
it.
Macroeconomics
examines the economy as a whole to explain broad aggregates and their
interactions "top down", that is, using a simplified form of
general-equilibrium theory.(Blaug (2017), p. 345 :) Such aggregates include
national income and output, the unemployment rate, and price inflation and
subaggregates like total consumption and investment spending and their
components. It also studies effects of monetary policyand fiscal policy.
Microeconomics
focuses on relations among individuals (with firms and households frequently
counting as honorary individuals and little said about the idiosyncrasies of
the demand of particular individuals). Macroeconomics grapples with the
relations among economic aggregates, such as relations between the money supply
and the rate of interest or the rate of growth, focusing especially on problems
concerning the business cycle and the influence of monetary and fiscal policy
on economic outcomes.
Econometrics is the
application of statistical methods to economic data in order to give empirical
content to economic relationships.( Pesaran (1987) . More precisely, it is
"the quantitative analysis of actual economic phenomena based on the
concurrent development of theory and observation, related by appropriate methods
of inference. Samuelson, Koopmans, Stone (1954).
If should take a look at contemporary economics, the casual
factors are basic claims about rationality, claims that consumers want more
goods rather than fewer goods, claims that those who are in charge of
businesses want larger net returns and suppose to have smaller net returns, and
we put all those things together deductively. This is a very mathematical
science, and economist hopes to get a little bit of control over understanding
what actually goes on in the world, because economists are simplifying so much
and leaving out so many relevant casual factors.
Schools of
macroeconomics include Keynesians (and “new-Keyesians”), monetarists, “new
classical economics” (rational expectations theory — Begg 1982, Carter and
Maddock 1984, Hoover 1988, Minford and Peel 1983), and “real business cycle”
theories (Kydland and Prescott 1991, 1994; Sent 1998). Mainstream economics are
also devoted to specific questions concerning growth, finance, employment,
agriculture, housing, natural resources, international trade, and so forth.
Within orthodox economics, there are also many different approaches, such as
agency theory (Jensen and Meckling 1976, Fama 1980), the Chicago school (Becker
1976), or public choice theory (Brennan and Buchanan 1985, Buchanan 1975).
Different schools of
economics continue to raise a wide variety of epistemological and ontological
issues concerning philosophy of economic. The Ricardian vice has been an
recurrent issue, this refers to abstract model building and mathematical
formulas with unrealistic assumptions. In simpler terms, the Ricardian vice is
the tendency for economists to make and test theories that aren't troubled by
the complexities of reality, resulting in theories that are mathematically
beautiful but largely useless for practical applications.
(www.investopedia.com).
Joseph A. Schumpeter
coined this term “Ricardian vice” in his book History of Economic Analysis when
he criticized the habit assigned to Ricardo to represent the economy by a set
of simplified assumptions and to use tautologies to develop practical economic
solutions. In Schumpeter’s own words :
His (Ricardo’s)
interest was in the clear-cut result of direct, practical significance…, He
then piled one simplifying assumption upon another until, …he set up simple
one-way relations so that, in the end, the desire results emerged almost as
tautologies. For example (if)… profits ‘depend upon’ the price of wheat. And
under his implicit assumptions.., this is not only true, but undeniably, in
fact trivially, so. Profits could not possibly depend upon anything else, since
everything else is ‘given’, that is frozen. It is an excellent theory that can
never be refuted and lacks nothing save sense. The habit of applying results of
this character to the solution of practical problems we shall call the
Ricardian Vice. (Schumpeter, 1954: 472-73)
Schumpeter rejected
the kind of economic thought that mainly favours deductive methods of inquiry –
based on mathematical reasoning because the
habit known as the Ricardian Vice
generates analytical unrealistic results that are irrelevant to solve the
real-world economic problems as was evident in the 2008 global financial
crisis.
2.0: ONTOLOGY, EPISTEMOLOGY AND AXIOLOGY OF THE
PHILOSOPHY OF ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
2.1: EDUCATIONAL IDEALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Idealism is the group
of metaphysical philosophies that assert that reality, or reality as humans can
know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise
immaterial. Epistemologically, Idealism manifests as a skepticism about the
possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing. In contrast to Materialism,
Idealism asserts the primacy of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of
material phenomena. According to this view, consciousness exists before and is
the pre-condition of material existence. Consciousness creates and determines
the material and not vice versa. Idealist believes consciousness and mind to be
the origin of the material world and aims to explain the existing world
according to these principles.
Economics has
continued to raise questions that concern the legitimacy of severe abstraction
and idealization used in economics education. Mainstream economic models often
stipulate that everyone is perfectly rational and has perfect information or
that commodities are infinitely divisible. Such claims has been considered in some quarters exaggerations, and are
clearly false. Other schools of economics may not employ idealizations that are
this extreme, but there is no way to do economics if one is not willing to
simplify drastically and abstract from many complications.
Idealism theories are
mainly divided into two groups. Subjective idealism and Objective idealism;
Subjective idealism
takes as its starting point the given fact of human consciousness seeing the
existing world as a combination of sensation. Objective idealism posits the
existence of an objective consciousness which exists before and, in some sense,
independently of human ones. In a sociological sense, idealism emphasizes how
human ideas—especially beliefs and values—shape society.( Macionis, John J.
(2012). Sociology 14th Edition. Boston: Pearson. p. 88. ISBN
978-0-205-11671-3.) As an ontological doctrine, idealism goes further,
asserting that all entities are composed of mind or spirit. (Daniel Sommer
Robinson, "Idealism", Encyclopædia Britannica) Idealism thus rejects
physicalist and dualist theories that fail to ascribe priority to the mind.
(Wikipedia.com)
Economic theories are
built on representations of economic experiences. However, all representations
must pass the test of meeting the otherness of experience. Indeed, reality is a
system of relations that imply existence. In other words, reality is revealed
in existence as fact, as a phenomenon. Thus, the real is not what we think of
it, it is not a creation of the human mind (Ibri, 1992).
Under an ontological
point of view, realistic theories are built by constitutive achievements
through a process of inference and interpretation (Peirce, 1975). In this
attempt, it can be said that the phenomenology of economic relations is a
pillar for an ontology of Economics in the framework of realistic theories
about the behaviour of those economic relations as dynamic and evaluative
objects.
The real set of
economic relations are not strictly causal and governed by a system of laws
because the idea of a real-world governed by laws is a mere assumption, it’s
not real. As a matter of fact, the ontological indeterminism of economic
relations corresponds to a worldview where the economic facts could present
deviations from the so called economic laws, or even where the world of
economic experiences has elements of chance that are responsible for such
deviations
In other words, the presence of chance and
uncertainty makes room for discontinuities between the past and the future that
add certain degree of indeterminacy to the evolution of economic relations.
Thus, as the ontological indeterminism makes room for chance as a possibility
not regular through time, the principle of chance has relevant implications for
a realistic theoretical approach to the study of economic decisions and actions
through the flow of time (Ibri, 2000).
As a result, the
acceptance of a certain degree of indeterminacy in economic phenomena
reinforces the importance of formulating economic theories that consider the
changing features of their objects of research in their historical and
evolutionary circumstances. In this way, realism in Economics should enhance a
dialogue between theories and the complex economic phenomena that they intend
to explain. As a result, the principles of economic theories should therefore
be compatible with the properties inherent in the dynamic nature of the
economic objects, as the only possible way to illuminate central features of
the real-world. Madi, (2017)
2.2:
EDUCATIONAL REALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Realists believe that reality exists independent
of the human mind. The ultimate reality is the world of physical objects. The
focus is on the body/objects. Truth is objective-what can be observed.
Aristotle, a student of Plato who broke with his mentor's idealist philosophy,
is called the father of both Realism and the scientific method. In this
metaphysical view, the aim is to understand objective reality through "the
diligent and unsparing scrutiny of all observable data." Aristotle
believed that to understand an object, its ultimate form had to be understood,
which does not change. Aristotle also was the first to teach logic as a formal
discipline in order to be able to reason about physical events and aspects. The
exercise of rational thought is viewed as the ultimate purpose for humankind. (Cohen, 1999).
Realism has probably had the greatest impact in education, because it is the foundation of scientific reasoning. Realist educators encourage students to draw their observations and conclusions from the world around them, rather than confining themselves to an analysis of their own ideas. In this changing environment of real-world markets where economic events are happening on a large scale globally, I believe economists should learn how to develop realistic economic theories.
Realism has probably had the greatest impact in education, because it is the foundation of scientific reasoning. Realist educators encourage students to draw their observations and conclusions from the world around them, rather than confining themselves to an analysis of their own ideas. In this changing environment of real-world markets where economic events are happening on a large scale globally, I believe economists should learn how to develop realistic economic theories.
2.3:
EDUCATIONAL MONOISM/SPIRITUALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Spiritualism is a metaphysical belief that the
world is made up of at least two fundamental substances, matter and spirit.
This very broad metaphysical distinction is further developed into many and
various forms by the inclusion of details about what spiritual entities exist
such as a soul, the afterlife, spirits of the dead, deities and mediums; as
well as details about the nature of the relationship between spirit and matter.
It may also refer to the philosophy, doctrine, or religion pertaining to a
spiritual aspect of existence. (www.wikipedia.com)
Spiritualistic traditions appear deeply rooted in
shamanism and perhaps are one of the oldest forms of religion. Mediumship is a
modern form of shamanism and such ideas are very much like those developed by
Edward Burnett Tylor in his theory of animism,
in which there are other parallel worlds to our own, though invisible to
us and not accessible to us in our state. In every era of human history,
humanity has faced a unique challenge. Today, world all over, the major
challenge is the reconciliation between the material and non-material
dimensions of our human existence. In the past the challenge was to reconcile
science and religion.
Founders of economic
thinking have not begun as economists, in the way we understand the profession today.
Many of them were philosophers, moralists, ethicists, priests, etc. Reardon,
(2009) hence, It is only spiritual economics can truly embody the being of what
humanity is all about through a continuous transformation process in economics
education.
2.4:
EDUCATIONAL PLURALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
The pluralism in economics movement is a campaign
to change the teaching and research in economics towards more openness in its
approaches, topics and standpoints it considers. The goal of the movement is to
"reinvigorate the discipline and bring economics back into the service of
society" Some have argued that economics had greater scientific pluralism
in the past compared to the monist approach that is prevalent today. Pluralism
encourages the inclusion of a wide variety of neoclassical and
heterodoxeconomic theories—including classical, Post-Keynesian, institutional,
ecological, evolutionary, feminist, Marxist, and Austrian economics, stating
that "each tradition of thought adds something unique and valuable to
economic scholarship"
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
The question remains,
however, how to develop activities that engage students in ways that promote
deep approaches to learning and generate desired outcomes. Fink (2003) provides
one avenue for developing courses in which the experience of learning matters
as much as associated activities in moving students beyond note memorization,
identifying six categories associated with ‘significant learning’. They are;
i.
Foundational
knowledge: Provides ‘the basic understanding that is necessary for other kinds
of learning’.
ii.
Learning how
to learn: Learning about the learning process in a way that enables students to
become better students, inquire about a subject and construct knowledge, and
become ‘self-directing learners’.
iii.
Application:
Involves ‘using foundational knowledge’ and encompasses the development of
different skills and thinking (critical, creative, and practical), as well as
the ability to manage complex projects.
iv.
Integration:
Involves making connections between ideas, people, and realms of life.
v.
Human
dimension: Refers to the process of learning about oneself and others, to
‘inform students about the human significance of what they are learning’.
vi.
Caring:
Involves the ‘development of new feelings, interests and values’.
2.5:
EDUCATIONAL ABSOLUTISM (MERCANTILISM) IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Mercantilism is considered the Economic Side of
Absolutism. Mercantilism is an economic philosophy that emphasizes competition
between nations for wealth, which was measured in terms of who had the most
gold and silver.
A mercantilist
economy stresses national self-sufficiency and the preservation of national
wealth through a favorable balance of trade. Mercantilism is a type of command
economy, strictly regulating the production, distribution, and consumption of
goods and services. (Rothbard, 2017).
As the economic
aspect of state absolutism, mercantilism was of necessity a system of
state-building, of big government, of heavy royal expenditure, of high taxes,
of (especially after the late 17th century) inflation and deficit finance, of
war, imperialism, and the aggrandizing of the nation-state.
The focus in
examining mercantilist thinkers and writers should not be the fallacies of
their alleged economic "theories." Theory was the last consideration
in their minds. They were, as Schumpeter called them, "consultant
administrators and pamphleteers" — to which should be added lobbyists.
Their "theories" were any propaganda arguments, however faulty or
contradictory, that could win them a slice of boodle from the state apparatus.
2.6:
EDUCATIONAL FORMALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
The Growth Model of John von Neumann In the
immediate post-War years, Mark Blaug (1999, 2003) identified the emergence of a
new paradigm in economics, the so-called “formalist paradigm”, which marked the
arrival of the pre-eminence of (mathematical) form over (theoretical) content,
and which is mostly characterised by the crucial importance economists give to
a specific (non-constructive) kind of demonstration of existence of
equilibrium. This revolution took shape in the 1950s and 1960s around the works
of Arrow, Debreu, Patinkin, Solow, Dorfmann, Samuelson and Koopmans.
The term “formalism”
in education indicates use of symbols and unspecified mathematical techniques
to express an idea. By formalism, one is able to understand a particular
philosophy of mathematics which reduces it to a formal language, and is opposed
to intuitionism and logics on the question of the foundations of mathematics.
In 1997 the editor of Governing magazine
published an op-ed attacking the economics profession for denying the obvious
fact that globalisation was having devastating effects on the economy
(Ehrenhalt, 1997). As an example of just
how bad economists are, he quoted an unnamed `prominent economist' ‘Prof. Paul
Krugman’, who had written that’s there are important ideas in economics that
are crystal clear if you can stand algebra, and very difficult to grasp if you
can't'. This, according to the op-ed writer, was an `insult', a `charge of
illiteracy'; he went on to assert that algebra could not be essential to
economic understanding, because if it were this would delegitimize the opinions
of people who had not studied algebra when young and were now too old to
retool.
Many, indeed probably
most, of the non-economists who attack the field’s formalism do so not because
that formalism makes the field irrelevant, but on the contrary because
economists insist that their equations actually do say something about the real
world.
2.7:
EDUCATIONAL RATIONALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Economic rationalism is an Australian term often
used in the discussion of macroeconomic policy, applicable to the economic
policy of many governments around the world, in particular during the 1980s and
1990s.
Economic rationalists
tend to favour neoliberal policies: deregulation, a free market economy,
privatisation of state-owned industries, lower direct taxation and higher
indirect taxation, and a reduction of the size of the welfare state. However,
the term "economic rationalism" is commonly used in criticism of free-market
economic policies as amoral or asocial. In this context, it may be summarised
as "the view that commercial activity, represents a sphere of activity in
which moral considerations, beyond the rule of business probity dictated by
enlightened self-interest, have no role to play". (Quiggin,1997).
In support of
economic rationalism, some economists have denied that such criticisms are
accurate and claim that the term refers only to rational policy formulation
based on sound economic analysis, and it does not preclude government
intervention aimed at correcting market failure, income redistribution etc.
Recently across the
global, government economic policies have begun to give more attention to the
‘internal’ processes of teaching, learning, research and management, in terms
of the size of the education budget, the number and types of institutions etc.
Economic rationalism has installed a free market economic agenda at the heart
of public education policy, with deep consequences for both the academic and the
democratic project.
2.8:
EDUCATIONAL NATURALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Philosophically, naturalism is the "idea or
belief that only natural ‘as opposed to supernatural or spiritual’ laws and
forces operate in the world. Naturalists
assert that natural laws are the rules that govern the structure and behavior
of the natural universe, that the changing universe at every stage is a product
of these laws.
With the exception of
pantheists—who believe that Nature is identical with divinity while not recognizing
a distinct personal anthropomorphic god—theists challenge the idea that nature
contains all of reality. In the 20th century, Willard Van Orman Quine, George
Santayana, and other philosophers argued that the success of naturalism in
science meant that scientific methods should also be used in philosophy.
2.9:
EDUCATIONAL SCIENTISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Hayek defined "scientism" or the
"scientistic prejudice" as "slavish” imitation of the method and
language of Science" when applied to the social sciences, history,
management, etc. Scientism represents "a mechanical and uncritical
application of habits of thought to fields different from those in which they
have been formed, and as such is "not an unprejudiced but a very
prejudiced approach which, before it has considered its subject, claims to know
what is the most appropriate way of investigating it.
It no doubt the In
the field of social science the man who suggests self-criticism and internal
systematic doubt of what we are doing often invokes the scorn and wrath of his
fellows who feel threatened in smug niches of narrow expertness.
2.10:
EDUCATIONAL RELATIVISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Relativism, roughly put, is the view that truth
and falsity, right and wrong, standards of reasoning, and procedures of
justification are products of differing conventions and frameworks of
assessment and that their authority is confined to the context giving rise to
them. More precisely, “relativism” covers views which maintain that—at a high
level of abstraction—at least some class of things have the properties they
have (e.g., beautiful, morally good, epistemically justified) not simpliciter,
but only relative to a given framework of assessment (e.g., local cultural
norms, individual standards), and correspondingly, that the truth of claims
attributing these properties holds only once the relevant framework of
assessment is specified or supplied. Relativists characteristically insist,
furthermore, that if something is only relatively so, then there can be no framework-independent
vantage point from which the matter of whether the thing in question is so can
be established. (Hausman, 2018).
2.11:
EDUCATIONAL MATERIALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Materialism is the importance a person attaches to
acquiring and consuming material goods. The use of the term materialistic to
describe a person's personality or a society tends to have a negative or
critical connotation. Also called acquisitiveness, it is often associated with
a value system which regards social status as being determined by affluence as
well as the belief that possessions can provide happiness. Materialism can be
considered a pragmatic form of enlightened self-interest based on a prudent
understanding of education. It is a personal attitude which attaches importance
to acquiring and consuming certain good and services.
2.12:
EDUCATIONAL EXISTENTIALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
The nature of reality for Existentialists is
subjective, and lies within the individual. The physical world has no inherent
meaning outside of human existence. Individual choice and individual standards
rather than external standards are central. Existence comes before any
definition of what we are. In education, the subject matter of existentialist
classrooms should be a matter of personal choice. Teachers view the individual
as an entity within a social context in which the learner must confront others'
views to clarify his or her own. Real answers come from within an individual,
not from outside authority. Examining life through authentic thinking involves
students in genuine learning experiences. Existentialists are opposed to
thinking about students as objects to be measured, tracked, or standardized.
Such educators want the educational experience to focus on creating
opportunities for self-direction and self actualization. (Cohen, 1999).
2.13:
EDUCATIONAL PERENNIALISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Educational perennialism is a normative
educational philosophy. Perennialists believe that one should teach the things
that are of everlasting pertinence to all people everywhere, and that the
emphasis should be on principles, not facts. Since people are human, one should
teach first about humans, rather than machines or techniques and liberal rather
than vocational topics. (www.wikipedia.com).
Here, the aim of
education is to ensure that students acquire understandings about the great
ideas of Western civilization. The focus is to teach ideas that are
everlasting, to seek enduring truths which are constant, not changing, as the
natural and human worlds at their most essential level, do not change. (Cohen,
1999).
2.14:
EDUCATIONAL MODERNISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Modernism is a philosophical movement that, along
with cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-scale and far-reaching
transformations in Western society during the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. Economics developed as a product of Enlightenment, emerging as a
distinct field with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in
1776.
The term modernism
denotes not so much a fully fleshed-out ideology as a zeitgeist, a "spirit
of the age." It developed at the end of the 19th century, became dominant
with World War I, and went into eclipse in the 1970s, and it affected not only
the arts but also philosophy and the social sciences. In part, modernism
represented a reaction against Romanticism and the values of the Victorian era.
(Wells, 2010). Modernism was a reaction to mass culture and totalitarianism
government support and afored the masses to more educational products like novels.
In general, capitalists made reading culture widespread by the mass production
of knowledge products.
2.15:
EDUCATIONAL POS MODERNISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Postmodern economists Ruccio and Amariglio,
authors of Postmodern Moments in Modern Economics, explain, “The Postmodern
condition opens up a very different research agenda for economic scientists
should they choose to disown (what many regard as a necessary fiction) the
unified self and move, instead to a fiction supposedly more in tune with
contemporary reality, the de-centered self. Postmodernists tend not to use
traditional language associated with economics—wages, pensions, interest rates,
inflation, Social Security, retirement, etc. Instead, they use obscure words
and phrases such as fragmentation, differentiation, chronology, pastiche,
anti-foundationalism, and pluralism. Noebel, (2006).
2.16:
EDUCATIONAL CONSTRUCTIVISM IN ECONOMICS EDUCATION:
Education
is collegiums of
rapidly changing technology, moral learning
and child development
for creating equitable, just
and democratic societies. (Yadav, Renu. (2016).
Constructivism is a
theory of learning based on the idea that knowledge is constructed by the
knower based on mental activity. Learners are considered to be active organisms
seeking meaning. Constructions of meaning may initially bear little
relationship to reality (as in the naive theories of children), but will become
increasing more complex, differentiated and realistic as time goes on.
According to Bednar,
et al (1991) the learner is building an internal representation of knowledge, a
personal interpretation of experience. This representation is constantly open
to change, its structure and linkages forming the foundation to which other
knowledge structures are appended. Learning is an active process in which
meaning is developed on the basis of experience. Conceptual growth comes from
the sharing of multiple perspectives and simultaneous changing of our internal
representations in response to those perspectives as well as through cumulative
experience.
3.0: REFERENCES:
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Geoffrey (2006) On the Problem of Formalism in Economics, VOPROSY ECONOMIKI
Free,
Rhona C., ed. (2010). 21st Century Economics: A Reference Handbook. Volume 1. SAGE Publications. p. 8. ISBN
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Daniel
Hausman, Herbert A. Simon and Hilldale Professor of Philosophy, University of
Wisconsin: An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, 1932,
p. 15).
David
Noebel, Summit Press, 2006. Compliments of John Stonestreet, David Noebel, and
the Christian Worldview Ministry at Summit Ministries.)
David
F. Ruccio and Jack Amariglio, Postmodern Moments in Modern Economics
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003), 299.
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The New Palgrave, p. 1 [pp. 1–34].Abstract Archived 18 May 2012 at the Wayback
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Harper,
Douglas (2007). "Online Etymology Dictionary – Economy"
Hausman,
Daniel M., "Philosophy of Economics", The Stanford Encyclopedia
of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition),
Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/economics/>.
Hayek's
Economica essays on scientism were collected in his 1952 Counter- Revolution of
Science and reprinted in volume 13 of the Collected Works.)
Helmut
Schoeck and James W. Wiggins (1960).
https://mises.org/library/6-economics-modernism
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Laurence R. (September 1998). "Introduction to the Economics of Religion". Journal of Economic
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Krugman,
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LeoNora
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Marshall,
Alfred (1890). Principles of Economics. Macmillan and Company. pp. 1–2.
Mercantilism
as the Economic Side of Absolutism 12/26/2017 Murray N. Rothbard)
[This
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Thought, vol. 1, Economic Thought Before Adam Smith.]
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Lawson,
Tony. (2002). Mathematical Formalism in Economics: what really is the problem?.
Maria
A. Madi. (2017). Realism in Economics: ontological indeterminism and methods of
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M.
Hashem Pesaran (1987). "Econometrics," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary
of Economics, v. 2, p. 8 [pp. 8–22]. Reprinted in J. Eatwell et al., eds.
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A. Samuelson, T. C. Koopmans, and J. R. N. Stone (1954). "Report of the
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Richard
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Adam (1776). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. and Book IV, as quoted in
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TWO
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