What Economics Can Learn From Ontology

Abstract

This chapter will present the argument that the tools of ontology offer a means for teaching the philosophical foundations of economic value and for engaging interdisciplinarily the examinations of economics. Ontology is the branch of philosophy that is concerned with the description of existing domains in the world, the objects in such domains, and their relations. It does not attempt to explain or interpret, only to describe, and it is in this sense that ontology is reconcilable with the scientific methods of economics. Additionally, it is capable of describing the complex structures, relations, and emergence of economic objects in human economic activity. This chapter will address three insights from ontology that shed light on the implications of the notion of subjectivity in the theory of subjective economic value, the differences between economic value and other kinds of value, and the role that subjectivity and economic value have in the emergence of the social object we know as money.