IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ids/ijplur/v3y2012i1p91-103.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Two perspectives of time in economics: the neoclassical school (Newtonian) versus the Austrian school (Bergsonian)

Author

Listed:
  • Fu-Lai Tony Yu

Abstract

This paper has two objectives. Firstly, it compares the concept of time in two economic paradigms, the neoclassical and the Austrian school. Secondly, this paper traces the development of the concept of subjective time in the Austrian School of Economics from Carl Menger to the contemporary Austrian economists. The neoclassical school uses a Newtonian time concept in which time is homogeneous, mathematically discontinuous and causal inertia, while most Austrian economists adopt Henri Bergson's concept of time, where time is subjective and continuous, meaning that events are linked with each other. This implies that an individual's decision will affect on the future, an effect which is unpredictable. Illustrations on the usefulness of the subjective time in understanding human action and economic phenomena are given. This paper concludes that it is more fruitful to use Bergsonian time than Newtonian time in economic research.

Suggested Citation

  • Fu-Lai Tony Yu, 2012. "Two perspectives of time in economics: the neoclassical school (Newtonian) versus the Austrian school (Bergsonian)," International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 3(1), pages 91-103.
    • Handle: RePEc:ids:ijplur:v:3:y:2012:i:1:p:91-103
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=47471
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ferlito, Carmelo, 2018. "Economics: A Science of Meaning," EconStor Preprints 190821, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ids:ijplur:v:3:y:2012:i:1:p:91-103. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Parker (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.inderscience.com/browse/index.php?journalID=319 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.