34I0158
This course is co-taught with Lorenzo Casini.
Economics is a fascinating and multifaceted science, philosophically significant to issues as diverse as the nature of rationality, scientific methodology, the fact-value distinction, etc. This course focuses on debates at the interface between economics and philosophy of science. It does so by reviewing a selection of writings by both economists and philosophers on the status of (neoclassical) economics, its foundations, goals, and methods. Topics of discussion will comprise the nature of rationality, the explanatory role of intentions, laws, and causes, the function of idealization and abstraction in theories and models, the interaction between descriptive and normative goals in economics, and the relation of economics to physics, psychology, and evolutionary biology.
This seminar will be in English.