Purpose – The paper examines the dependence of the positivist and welfarist preference satisfaction paradigm of neoclassical economics upon an implicit functionalist philosophy of mind. Functionalism is the doctrine that mental states are strictly materialistic and understandable in...

Purpose – The paper examines the dependence of the positivist and welfarist preference satisfaction paradigm of neoclassical economics upon an implicit functionalist philosophy of mind. Functionalism is the doctrine that mental states are strictly materialistic and understandable in...

This paper uses a core-periphery distinction to characterize contemporary economics, economic methodology, and also today’s world economy. First, it applies the distinction to the organization of contemporary economics through an examination of the problem of explaining economics’ relations...