Selected Chapters from the History of Economic Thought

This thesis deals with the development of some key economic topic from the very foundation of our Western culture. From the Epic of Gilgamesh, on which no economic literature exists, through Hebrew thought in the Tanakh, Greek philosophers and Christianity, the paper analyses the development of philosophy of economy in the writings of Rene Descartes, Bernard Mandeville and Adam Smith. The work follows seven key topics: (i) history of the idea of demand and supply (consumption and labour), tracing its very roots to the oldest creation myths we have, (ii) the ethical dimension of the economic debate on good and evil, (iii) the notion of linear progress and cyclicality of development, (iv) the idea of invisible hand of the markets, (v) the idea of animal spirits, (vi) the philosophical basis of mathematization of economics and (vii) the idea of truth in science and economics in particular. This paper tries to look at meta-economics, offer a more integrated counterbalance to the mathematically reductionist approach of recent mainstream economic way of thinking. The work tries to combine philosophy, theology, anthropology, sociology and psychology with economic thinking. The thesis is a selection of chapters from a book Economics of Good and Evil -The Quest for Economic Meaning from Gilgamesh to Wall..