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Two philosophical blind spots in the pedagogy of undergraduate economics
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Date
2025-09-02
Authors
Ross, Don
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Edward Elgar Publishing
Published Version
Abstract
I consider two lessons from philosophy that, if economists were better aware of them, could improve undergraduate pedagogy in economics. First, economists should familiarise themselves with the understanding of the nature of preferences and beliefs that is becoming the majority view in the philosophy of cognitive science, that they are externally attributed from the intentional stance, rather than internal representational states. This would make the idea of revealed preference easier for students to grasp, and could be taught simply as part of the introduction of utility functions, thus requiring no extra-economic digression. Second, economists should recognise that the idea of general rationality adds nothing to the concept of agency, and should stop using the former idea in the classroom because it serves only to confirm counter-productive stereotypes of economists as bossy suppressors of warm values.
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Keywords
Teaching economics , Undergraduate economics curriculum , Philosophy of economics , Social atomism , General rationality
Citation
Ross, D. (2025) 'Two philosophical blind spots in the pedagogy of undergraduate economics', in Ianulardo, G., Davis, J. B. and Crespo, R. F. (eds.) Handbook of Teaching Philosophy to Economists. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 283-297. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781035336821.00028