The Silence of Philosophers: Economics as Philosophy's Blind Spot

The Silence of Philosophers: Economics as Philosophy's Blind Spot

Farid Saberi

1- The Silence of the Departments

While Trump and his economic team are sending shock waves through the global economy, economic theories and economists could hardly agree on adequate accounts and facts about what the heck is going on. Conceptual and methodological confusion is abundant while philosophical rigor expected from the philosophy of sciences to figure them out is lacking. This is not accidental.

There is only a little room for the philosophy of economics in philosophy departments. In an ideal world, the philosophy of economics is among the most popular and discussed areas of the philosophy of science. Economics as a science directly shapes our social life more than any other science. It is ridiculous that most philosophy departments in North America have no philosopher of economics. Philosophers of science question how astronomers and evolutionary biologists build their scientific models and make predictions while having no idea what the so-called Ivy League economists are doing at the Federal Reserve and other central banks around the world. In the name of science, they make decisions that shape our lives, wars, human suffering, unemployment, and poverty. Still, professional and well-trained polite philosophers hardly question their scientific models and decision-making.

Emrah Aydinonat, a philosopher of economics from the University of Helsinki, has built a list of all the philosophy of economics courses offered in different universities in the West (list). The results are staggering. One can hardly find a graduate-level philosophy of economics course. For example, in Canada, there were only two (one at the UBC and the other in Waterloo), both undergraduate-level courses. Compare this to the numerous advanced and graduate-level courses offered in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, language, or other areas of philosophy of science (which of course are necessary and important). I am not suggesting that these other topics of philosophy should be removed or replaced. I am just suggesting that the philosophy of economics could be among them. And it is not. By a large factor.

Even when one goes through the archives of prestigious philosophy of economics journals (there are only a few of them), one can hardly resist noticing that philosophical exploration of the economic sciences is more focused on the theory of actions, rational choice, and behavioral economics than questioning the capitalist background assumption of the modern economics.

One of the main concerns of the philosophers of sciences is to examine the sciences, check their biases and conceptual confusions, and help them progress reflective manner. While philosophers of science like physics and biology are in conversation with scientists about the most meticulous details of their scientific works (sometimes too meticulous), economists (another group of people credited as scientists) are running the mainstream economics show by getting hired at big banks, economic institutions, and political advisory teams and doing their "science" with no or little question.

2- The Sanitization of the Philosophical Spirit

It is as if getting too close to these mundane questions will disqualify philosophers of science. We should talk about different theories of dark matter or the evolutionary origin of cells or consciousness and not what Janet Yellen and Jerome H. Powell. are doing to our lives as heads of the US Federal Reserve. It is as if getting too close to these mundane questions would be risky. God forbid good old polite and harmless philosophers of science could be accused of being critical of main economic decision-makers, that is a sin, and that is like almost being a Marxist. The motto is clear: Do not question the wisdom of Markets and those shaping Markets. That practically has become as unthinkable as questioning the wisdom of God and its divine plan in medieval philosophy. Philosophers just do not bother to ask these kinds of philosophical questions.

The red scare and McCarthyism which shaped the academic landscape, fundamentally crippled the philosophical spirit in North America. Both popular and academic culture was purified from whatever could sound like bringing in rational discourse and questioning the sacred methodologies of working and theoretical economists, like their sacred abstract equilibrium models, their faith in the invisible hand, their methodologies, their inability to predict capitalist crises, their ridiculous view of human psychology and behavioral tendencies.

As an international who has not been shaped under the intellectual climate of North American Philosophy, this artificial deformation of the intellectual life just sounds ridiculous and mind-blowing to me. I come from Iran where surgical manipulation of the intellectual life and academia is also a dire problem. How people (very smart people) just get in the line and accept the situation as it is so pitiful in both Iran and here. One probably thinks to oneself: I am a philosopher of science, or language or mind, I cannot comment, think, encourage, learn, or teach philosophy of economics. So, let's just stick to the compartmentalization imposed on us. Let's just play by the rules.

To be continued...