Confronting Reality -- The World of Economists as It Is

Author: Wang Dingding
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-03-01
Features: We might as well consider that the "imperialist" attitude of economics fundamentally stems from its belief in its basic method—"Rationality legislates for nature." Economists treat "humans" as "data," seeking to eliminate the "individuality" of data with "statistical laws" in order to derive any principles of economics. However, as the world enters the realm of "individuality," phenomena that were once governable by rationality seem increasingly independent and rule-defying. In my view, the more humans move away from the state of mere "clothes-and-food animals," the more their "individuality" becomes evident, making "individualization" an increasingly dominant social phenomenon. The characteristic problem of modern phenomena is the disappearance of "intersubjectivity" and how to rebuild it. Rationality can no longer appear before phenomena as a legislator, because "rationality" and "phenomena" are now the two ends of a dialogue of "intersubjectivity." Confronting phenomena thus becomes a part of "dialogical ethics." I hope to dissolve the metaphysical foundation of Western science—"logicontology-theology"—with "confronting phenomena" and bring science back to "dialogical logos." Of course, I am fully aware how insignificant my efforts are. For thousands of years, the power of the sea lies in the logically recurring and vanishing waves. As for the colorful sails on the crest of those waves, they are merely fleeting "phenomena," destined to return to eternal solitude.