Thursday, March 23, 2023

Is economics a social science?

I'm set to teach philosophy of social sciences next year (in the autumn), so I've been on the lookout for things about (social) science. I was struck by the title of this press release: a funding boost for economics and social sciences. 

This seems like rather odd phrasing to me. I would have thought that 'social sciences' already included economics, but separating them in this way suggests otherwise.

Institutionally speaking, the Department of Economics is part of the Faculty of Social Sciences. This may not be decisive, since our Faculty also includes Mathematical Sciences and I wouldn't ordinarily consider mathematicians to be social scientists. However, the inclusion of economics does not seem similarly incongruous. If anything, it's arguably the social science par excellence.

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