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Ontology in Economics

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Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives

Abstract

Economics is the study of the ‘economic world’ of human action in relation to material resources. The economic world is therein composed of objects: including economic agents (e.g. Homo Oeconomicus, firms), resources (e.g. commodities), economic institutions (e.g. markets, money, central banks); yet is also composed of knowledge (e.g. technology, expectations, routines, preferences) and is thus in significant part subjective. The fusion of object and subject, and the complexity this raises (for example in the theory of value), however, is just the beginning of the vast ontological complexity of the economic world. For the economic world is also an emergent (and massively parallel) process of socially-coordinated individual knowledge. This knowledge is pragmatic, conjectural and mostly inductive. The organizations and institutions that coordinate economic behavior are themselves subject to self-organization and evolution. There is manifold supervenience and protean sets. The question ‘What is the economic system made of?’ or ‘What are the constituents of economic reality?’ has a great many possible answers that harbor substantial incommensurability. The upshot, then, is that the economic world is ontologically complex in a profound way.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Jason Potts

  2. ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Jason Potts

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  1. Jason Potts
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Correspondence to Jason Potts .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dipto. Sociologia e Ricerca Sociale, Universita di Trento, Via Verdi 26, Trento, 38100, Italy

    Roberto Poli

  2. Dept. Philosophy, University of Aarhus, Jens Chr. Skousvej 7, Aarhus C, 8000, Denmark

    Johanna Seibt

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Potts, J. (2010). Ontology in Economics. In: Poli, R., Seibt, J. (eds) Theory and Applications of Ontology: Philosophical Perspectives. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8845-1_13

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