From a nitty-gritty debate within economics into the deep waters of philosophy of science. Introduction to the special issue of ZFN

Abstract

It all started in 2021 when we sparked a rather specific debate within Austrian economics in Philosophical Problems in Science (Zagadnienia Filozoficzne w Nauce) – traditionally abbreviated as ZFN. The story unfolded as follows. First, Wysocki submitted a paper on the concept of indifference, as it is normally understood in the Austrian school of economics. To his astonishment and great relief, this then rising journal (now the one with well-established reputation, its Scopus ranking being as high as Q2 under the rubric of philosophy) accepted the submission in question and published it promptly in ZFN 71 as (Wysocki, 2021). It was an honour and a privilege, especially given the fact that Austrian economics – with all due respect to its scientific achievements – is nowadays not a mainstream economic current, to say the least. Hence, being published in ZFN only added to the strength of Wysocki’s belief that the journal is clearly unbiased towards any sort of philosophy of science. The very fact that Wysocki published a paper on indifference in Austrian economics and the fact that he spread the news about ZFN being also open to publishing maverick (after all, as already observed, Austrian economics is not a branch of mainstream economics) papers related to philosophy of science prompted Walter Block (a prominent Austrian economist) to submit to ZFN his rejoinder to Wysocki’s original paper on indifference, with the said response being ultimately published in ZFN 72 as (Block, 2022).