Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/27874 
Year of Publication: 
2008
Series/Report no.: 
Frankfurt School - Working Paper Series No. 105
Publisher: 
Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
Economics is increasingly adopting the methodological standards and procedures of the natural sciences. The paper analyzes this 'naturalistic turn' from the philosophical perspective on naturalism, and I discuss the implications for the field of finance. The theory of finance is an interesting case in point for the methodological issues, as it manifests a paradigmatic tension between the pure theory of finance and Behavioral Finance. I distinguish between three kinds of naturalism: mark I, the reduction of behavior on psychoneural phenomena, mark II, the transfer of patterns of causal explanations from the natural sciences to the social sciences, mark III, the enrichment of the ontology from observer-independent to observer-relative facts. Building an integrated naturalistic paradigm from these three ingredients, I show that naturalism in economics will only be completed by a simultaneous linguistic turn, with language being analyzed from the naturalistic viewpoint. I relate this proposition with recent results of research into finance, especially connecting Behavioral Finance with the sociology of finance.
Subjects: 
Naturalism
causation in economics
neuroeconomics
behavioral finance
social ontology
sociology of finance
JEL: 
A12
B41
D87
G00
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size
338.54 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.