Critical Thinking and the Study of Economics

Our paper does not study the rational man with his optimal choice, with his behavior once confronted with the problem of scarcity and resource allocation, nor does it study the man of cost-benefit analysis, the one of logical considerations, honest in his conclusions but free from emotional prejudice. We study the thinking man, the one who adds creativity, intuition and insightfulness to the process of investigating the economic world. The paper studies the logical man, the one of imagination who can combine various ideas and innovative processes into a coherent theory or piece of knowledge unobserved by others. It studies the observing man, the man of reality who investigates the economic system and does not feel comfortable having no explanations about some of its principles or elements. It studies the interrogating man, who consistently asks questions about why things are the way they are or how they evolve that way.