Author Description

Introducing an alternative philosophical foundation to the study of economics, this book explains and adopts the perspective of the Italian philosopher Antonio Rosmini(1797-1855), whose interpretation of economic action was fundamentally at odds with the prevailing and all-conquering utilitarianism of modernity. Rosmini, one of the most important Italian and Catholic philosophers of the modern age, eschewed the traditional concepts of subjectivism and individualism at the core of the utilitarian thesis, prefiguring today's critique of 'autistic economics' with his assertion that micro-economic formulae consecrating the 'maximization of utility' derive not from scientific principles or even hypotheses, but from uncritically adopted philosophical ideas.