Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1990
Publication Title
Economics as Discourse: An Analysis of the Language of Economists
Pages
65-89
Publisher Name
Kluwer Academic Publishers
Publisher Location
Boston/Dordrecht/London
Abstract
This contribution to Economics as Discourse: An Analysis of the Language of Economists develops the theme that economics, long considered a science, is actually part of the cultural context by and through which we give meaning and purpose to our lives. Economics is culture, our culture in the sense that it represents an “effort to provide a coherent set of answers to the existentialist situations that confront all human beings in the passage of their lives” (Bell 1976, p. 12).
The analytical framework for this chapter is Clifford Geertz’s model of religion as a cultural system (1973, pp. 87-125). The analytical task is to delve into the meaning of economics. I juxtapose economics with religion knowing full well that few economists think of themselves as theologians. Doing so, however, illuminates the meanings of the concepts embodied in the symbols that make up economics proper, symbols such as the Marshallian Cross.1 We can then inquire into the relationship, or lack of relationship, between economics and what goes on in the world.
Identifier
0-7923-9046-6
Recommended Citation
Benton, Raymond Jr.. A Hermeneutic Approach to Economics: If Economics is Not Science, And if it is Not Merely Mathematics, Then What Could it Be?. Economics as Discourse: An Analysis of the Language of Economists, , : 65-89, 1990. Retrieved from Loyola eCommons, School of Business: Faculty Publications and Other Works,
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Copyright Statement
© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1990
Comments
Author Posting. © Springer Science+Business Media New York 1990. This abstract is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The chapter was published in Economics as Discourse: An Analysis of the Language of Economists, 1990, https://www.springer.com/us/book/9780792390466
To view the chapter in full, please contact the author:
Raymond Benton Jr.
rbenton@luc.edu