ABSTRACT

However, the question is what such an attempt of integration - or less ambitious: mutual learning - could look like. As we know from experience, this kind of discourse between paradigms is often far from (an) ideal (speech situation). One of the main reasons why such a discourse may fail is that theories and their concepts are taken too literally. Particularly for outsiders unfamiliar with economic thinking there is a danger that theoretical constructs like the concepts of homo oeconomicus or revealed preferences are taken too literally as a description of reality.