Courses / Module

This seminar will survey economic theory from antiquity through the origins of market capitalism in order to identify the peculiar philosophical assumptions underlying the latter—metaphysical assumptions, epistemological assumptions, assumptions about human nature, and ethical assumptions. The seminar will a) begin with examinations of anthropological studies of what Karl Polanyi termed “archaic economies” and of ancient and medieval economic thought; b) it will then examine some of the historical, religious, and philosophical sources of classical and neo-classical economic thought; and c) it will examine classical and neo-classical economic theories as efforts to establish ethics as a natural science—even a mathematical science—economics’ severance, as a discipline, from moral philosophy, and how that severance has “veiled,” as Robert Heilbroner described it, mainstream economics’ philosophical assumptions. Central questions guiding the course will be: What does it mean to make a “science” of the study of human society, especially economy? What is the proper measure of economy? What is the relationship between material wealth and human well-being and flourishing?