Philosophy in Economics, 2e éd.

Crises or theories which are belied by facts, the various criticisms made of economic science cannot be extraneous to the historical and philosophical trajectory of the discipline. The understanding of the modern fate of economics provides the keys to its future.

This is the second edition of Philosophy in Economics, which includes, in particular, a revised general introduction. This book is a search for the link, which has been broken within the act of forgetting, between what we today call the disciplines of economics and philosophy. This act of forgetting contains within it the autonomous advent of economics, which is merged with that of the acting Subject. Economic thinking has been invaded by the acting Subject and econo-mics is the modern name for the relationship with the world. This turning point, which hastens the discipline towards a technique of the action of transforming the world, draws the whole of the concepts towards the sphere of the acting Subject and distances the thinking of that which is at the very foundation of economics. This results in the onset of a crisis, which affects the conceptual pillars, such as value or equilibrium. This mutation forms part of the very essence of modernity.

This task to reconquer a conceptual totality develops from this diagnosis. It involves restoring the link, within a specific referential, between the cardinal points represented by the acting Subject, the Other, time and language, since economics is a discourse governed by an order. The method is genealogical, an archaeological analysis of the concepts of economic thinking. Economic and financial crises are first and foremost conceptual crises. We need more philosophy in economics, not less.

This philosophical adventure into economic territory stems from a feeling of frustration. Economics, which has become the dominant mode of relationship with the world, has been increasingly relieved of the need to clarify the foundations of such a legitimacy. We mean by this a general framework of knowledge and, in particular, a realistic theory of the Subject and of time. The distinction made between the philosophical and economic dimensions is the sign of modernity itself and conceals an effective unity which has to be displayed and constructed. The questions of principle raised here have irrigated other works, calling for the construction of a theory of the economic Subject within its own environment (The Social Economy of Freedom), together with a new interpretation of the monetary economics of the market and finance (Money, Memory and Asset prices; Essays in Positive Investment Management).

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Pascal Blanqué, graduate of École Normale Supérieure and the Institut d’Études Politiques of Paris, with a Ph.D in Finance from the University of Paris-Dauphine, is Chief Investment Officer and Head of Institutional Business for a major international asset management company. His works focus on monetary issues, financial markets and the foundations of economics.