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The Past of the Futures: Inquiries Taking the Lens of Economic Philosophy
Editors: Ingrid Becker ; Michaela Haase ; Verena Rauen
Messianic Economics. The Entrepreneur as the Agent of Uncertain Futures in Modern Economic Ecosystems
Economic innovation and transformation are future-oriented fields where financial risk-return and economic growth considerations permeate with visions of technological progress and cultural determinants of human behavior. This case study about the evolution of the entrepreneurial persona in the history of economic thought demonstrates how narrative research can contribute to understanding the growth dynamics of economic ecosystems. Rather than being indicators of flaws in otherwise rational economic processes, narrative twists and turns reflect the institutional and cultural preconditions of economic growth and innovation.
Since the early days of industrialization, economic thought takes recourse to the institutional persona of the entrepreneur to explain dynamics of innovation and transformative growth. The descriptions of the entrepreneur in the works of Robert Cantillon, Joseph Schumpeter and Frank Knight show how the parameters of innovation, cristallized in the features of entrepreneurial activity, change along the trajectories of, and reflect, industrial and economic development. What these descriptions have in common are the fundamental features of innovative activity in otherwise steady economic ecosystems: the ability to embrace the uncertainty of a future venture through an informed view about future market demand; the stamina to impose change to incumbent structures and processes; and the acumen to mobilize ample financial funding to realize an […]
On The Geometry of Time in Rational Agency
Standard economic theory treats time as an exogenous, linear parameter that indexes choice and coordination. This paper argues that such treatment obscures a constitutive feature of rational agency. We develop a coherence-based framework in which the temporal structure relevant to rational choice is generated endogenously from evaluative admissibility rather than presupposed.Agency is modelled as smooth trajectories on a value-laden state space, with rationality defined in terms of locally coherent continuation rather than global optimisation. An evaluative potential induces a cone field on the tangent bundle, specifying at each state the directions of admissible continuation along which evaluative value does not locally decrease. Rational action is thus represented as cone-admissible motion through an evaluative geometry, not as the selection of optimal outcomes. Within this framework, agent-relative time is induced by evaluative progression along admissible trajectories. Both temporal ordering and temporal rate depend on the geometry of value-realising motion, even when evaluative structure and feasibility constraints are held fixed. Objective time remains available for coordination and measurement, but it plays no independent explanatory role in accounting for rational agency.An illustrative continuous-time economic-moral choice model shows how path dependence, rational disagreement, and moral compromise arise from the topology of admissible trajectories themselves, […]
Beyond order: contingency, recursion, and metastability in economics
This paper explores the ideas of order and equilibrium in economics. Drawing on the philosophical concept of absolute contingency (Meillassoux, 2008; Hui, 2019), this paper shows that equilibrium-based economic approaches encounter three key conceptual issues. First, ontologically, there is no inherent order that must persist. Second, epistemically, there are no guarantees that current conditions will remain the same in the future. Third, pragmatically, individuals act and revise their plans in response to contingent, changing conditions. Economic action may involve optimization under particular arrangements, but very often requires adaptation and learning as these arrangements change. The terms ontology, epistemology, and pragmatics are used here as heuristic tools. These three dimensions are viewed as a triad that, open to contingency, evolves recursively. Instead of viewing economic systems as mechanistic, we suggest seeing them as metastable processes open to transformation. In this perspective, order is not a necessity but merely one possible state. It is also argued that traditional economic models, emphasizing deductive rigor, are limited in external validity and learning potential. Simulation models, such as ABMs, are proposed as valuable complements for examining economic scenarios shaped by absolute contingency.
When rules run out: Cicero's De Officiis and the ethics of transparency in commercial transaction
Cicero’s De Officiis confronts a problem that remains unresolved in modern business ethics: why should an agent choose the ethical course of action when the alternative carries a clear financial advantage? This paper addresses that question by applying the guidelines Cicero establishes in Books 1 and 2 to the two exempla of Book 3: the Alexandrian merchant who withholds knowledge of incoming grain ships from a famine-stricken Rhodes, and the house seller who conceals structural defects from an unknowing buyer. Through this analysis, the paper demonstrates that Cicero’s thesis, that the honestum is always truly utile, holds in concrete instances of economic exchange, and that this is a structural argument rather than a moral exhortation. The argument proceeds by resolving three tensions that arise in the cases: between permissible non-disclosure and wrongful concealment, between civil and natural law, and between disclosure obligations and competing duties. Building on Julia Annas’s claim that Cicero misreads the debate between Diogenes and Antipater by creating a conflict where none exists, this paper shows that the two interlocutors occupy complementary rather than competing vantage points. They are establishing a legal baseline and a moral ceiling within the same structure. Taking into account Karl Homann’s challenge that individual moral motivation is structurally insufficient under competitive conditions, the paper also argues that Cicero’s framework is itself systemic. […]
The Past of the Futures: Inquiries Taking the Lens of Economic Philosophy: Introduction to the Special Section
The relation between the past and the future serves as a point ofdeparture for theories and perspectives in philosophy and economics. It istherefore not surprising that the economic philosophy also addresses thisrelation. The economist and philosopher Frank Knight had already pointed outa paradox in this relationship, which arises from the realization that the merepossibility of solving future problems rests on knowledge generated in the pastfor a future in which social reality may have changed. Building on this insight,our special issue brings together ontological, epistemological, pragmatic, andnormative questions that arise in economics, philosophy, and ethics, anddemonstrates how different conceptualizations of this relationship can shapecore concepts in these disciplines, such as agency, change, and responsibility. Weview uncertainty as an opportunity to rethink these concepts, highlighting formsof knowledge, judgment, and practical orientation that become indispensableonce continuity can no longer be taken for granted and certainty fades. However,expectations, which are inevitably based on past experiences, do not rule outopen possibilities.