G. Vissio, L’oggetto e la forma, la forma dell’oggetto. Epistemologia ed ontologia dell’economico

Abstract

The main topic of the paper concerns the influences of formalization on economics. The problem is approached by two different points of view: the ontological question about the status of formal and economical objects; the epistemological issue on the usage of formal tools in economics. According to the phenomenological approach the preliminary assumption is that the first part of the problem cannot be taken in account separately from the second one. The paper argues that the epistemological meaning of formal equipment of economical science has strong consequences on the ontological status of its own objects (e.g. the debt). The ambiguity of economics, between an axiomatic form and a modeling science, keeps its objects in a vague ontological status. The paper ends with some suggestions about perspective solutions of the problem. Although the phenomenological approach remains the conceptual square of the paper, it is supplemented by elements from different philosophical traditions and other fields of research, as history of mathematics (in particular the work of L. Corry) and history of economics (i.e. the results of E. R. Weintraub).