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General information |
Course unit name: Economics and Philosophy
Course unit code: 366743
Academic year: 2025-2026
Coordinator: Francisco Javier San Julian Arrupe
Department: Department of Economic History, Institutions and Policy and World Economy
Credits: 6
Single program: S
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Estimated learning time |
Total number of hours 150 |
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Face-to-face and/or online activities |
60 |
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- Lecture with practical component |
Face-to-face |
45 |
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- Seminar |
Face-to-face |
15 |
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Supervised project |
40 |
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Independent learning |
50 |
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Recommendations |
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Competences / Learning outcomes to be gained during study |
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Ability to work in a team (capacity to collaborate with others and contribute to a common project, capacity to work in cross-disciplinary and multicultural teams). |
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Critical reasoning and commitment to the plurality and diversity of social realities. |
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Concern for sustainability (capacity to assess the social and environmental impact of actions taken in a particular setting and capacity to adopt integrated and systemic approaches). |
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Understanding of the history and development of economic ideas and of current economic realities in different territorial settings. |
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Ability to produce critical analyses of economic theories and models. |
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Learning objectives |
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Referring to knowledge What is Economic Science?
Analyse and understand the philosophical foundations of economic science and the main schools of economic thought, both orthodox and heterodox.
Acquire the tools necessary for the critical evaluation of economic policies, including their design and implementation.
Referring to abilities, skills Apply the language, reasoning, and analytical tools of economists to examine ideas in economic thought throughout history.
Identify different trends and schools of economic thought, recognising the continuity of certain ideas and their philosophical underpinnings to the present day.
Apply acquired knowledge and skills to the analysis and resolution of economic problems.
Develop communication skills through class participation and teamwork.
Referring to attitudes, values and norms Cultivate independent learning and personal responsibility in the acquisition and application of knowledge. |
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Teaching blocks |
1. The Vienna Circle and Logical Empiricism
2. Economics: an inductive or deductive science?
3. Karl Popper and the rise of the hypothetical-deductive approach to science
4. Economics and statistics
5. Research on the economic cycle: the rise of modelling
6. Kuhn and Lakatos
7. John Maynard Keynes and Jan Tinbergen: the dramatist and the model maker
8. Methodologies in positive economics. Milton Friedman and the Cowles Commission for Research in Econometrics: structural models and the "as if" methodology
9. Modelling between reality and abstraction: thought experiments in economics
10. Experimentation in economics
11. Simulation with models
12. Rhetoric and the sociology of scientific knowledge
13. Economics as a social and political science
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Teaching methods and general organization |
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1. On campus learning activities
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Official assessment of learning outcomes |
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The material covered in lectures, practical exercises, assigned tasks, and discussions of the required readings are assessed as follows:
The continuous mode of assessment requires students to attend classes on a regular basis. Students who do not pass the continuous mode of assessment are entitled to sit the repeat assessment examination, in accordance with the Faculty’s regulations, on the date established by the Academic Board.
Examination-based assessment Students who do not wish to be assessed continuously may opt for the single mode of assessment.
Single assessment is based on compulsory examination, graded on a ten-point scale. |
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Reading and study resources |
Check availability in Cercabib
Book
Blaug, Mark. 1994. The methodology of economics or how economists explain. 2nd ed ed, Cambridge surveys of economic literature. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
| Optional reading. |
Catāleg UB (1a ed., 1980)
Versiķ en castellā (1a ed., 1985)
Davis, John Bryan, D. Wade Hands, and Uskali Mäki. 1998. The handbook of economic methodology. Cheltenham, UK: E. Elgar.
| Optional reading. |
Boumans, Marcel , John Bryan Davis, Mark Blaug., Harro Maas, and Andrej Svorencik. 2010. Economic methodology : understanding economics as a science. Basingstoke [England]; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Morgan, Mary S. 2012. The World in the Model: How Economists Work and Think. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
| Optional reading. |
Maas, Harro. 2014. Economic Methodology: A Historical Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Chapter
Friedman, Milton. 1953. Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press. Pp 3-43.
| Optional reading. |
Catāleg UB (1966)
Versiķ en castellā (1967)
Article
Gibbard, Allan, and Hal R. Varian. 1978. "Economic Models." The Journal of Philosophy 75 (11):664-677.
| Optional reading. |
McCloskey, Donald N. 1983. "The Rhetoric of Economics." Journal of Economic Literature 21 (2):481-517.
| Optional reading. |