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In the parlance of modern Japanese philosophy, the term Basho denotes a field of experience underlying all conceptions of reality, while remaining itself conceptually ungraspable. The Basho of Economics, then, refers to the economy's hidden experiential ground, which has never been explicitly scrutinized, as such, by mainstream economics. We uncover this ground by discerning the tacit presuppositions of classical and neo-classical theories from the perspective of modern Japanese philosophy. In particular, we draw attention to the traditional atomist assumptions implicit in their equilibrium-centered models. By breaking through these assumptions, we reconstruct the economy as a functional and relational world of habitual and creative activity outside of the scope of mechanical laws.
About the author
Silja Graupe is the leading figure in the new disciplinary field of intercultural economics, defined as the critique and reformulation of the foundations of economics in the light of the world s philosophical and ethical traditions. She studied engineering and economics at the Technical University of Berlin, and in 2005 received her doctoral degree in economics from the same university. Her interest in Japanese philosophy dates back to her studies at Sophia University, Tokyo in 1999. Her publications include Japanese Modes of Business Behavior (2002), The Locus of Science and its Place in Japanese Culture (2006) and Do Daoist Principles Justify Laissez Faire Policies? (2007). She is currently working on redefining the role of knowledge and innovation in the economy, as they have been modeled in neo-classical economics, from the perspective of Japanese management and process philosophy.
Report
'Intercultural thought is not only about finding similarities between cultures, but de-familiarizing cultural patterns - making us see again realities that have become so habitual to us that they have faded into the material of our everyday lives. Graupe, by using Japanese thinking as a tool to unlock one of the truly central Western patterns of thought since the beginning of modernity, opens us not only to the surprising reality of the Other, but to the process by which we have become who we are.' From the foreword by Roger Gathman
