Współczesna ekonomia instytucjonalna w świetle metafizyki
Modern institutional economics from a perspective of metaphysics

Author(s): Jerzy Boehlke
Subject(s): Economy, Metaphysics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Poznaniu
Keywords: metaphysics;institutional economics;methodology of sciences;hermeneutics;
Summary/Abstract: This chapter aims to present and evaluate the metaphysical conditions and consequences of scientific cognition on the ground of modern institutional economics. The attempt made to identify the dominant way of defining metaphysics in institutional economics indicates the focus of methodological reflection in this area on syntactic and semantic analysis, that is, on the properties and structure of the concepts used. Questions of a metaphysical nature, concerning the meaning and “first” reasons for the existence of social entities ofan institutional nature have not, so far, received a satisfactory answer. The analysis of the syntactic and semantic aspects of metaphysics contributes to the growth of the number of possible interpretations and understandings of the concept of institutional order and the objects that constitute it, rather than to the determination of the “first” causes and meaning of the existence of the entities that constitute it. This is demonstrated by analysing the basic concepts and categories of institutional economics, such as example, institution, ownership, transaction costs, firm. In the light of hermeneutics, such effects of cognition are acceptable and, with the current state of methodological knowledge, practically only possible. However, this is not enough to discover the truth about the world of institutions in the classical sense. Building further interpretations and ways of understanding institutional entities is still possible and necessary. However, this does not exempt economists from the search for the truth about the institutional order, the criterion of which is experience.

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