The Genesis of the Means of Constituting Political and Economic Knowledge. On the Russian Edition of Joseph Vogl’s Book “Calculation and Passion. The Poetics of the Economic Man”

Abstract

The Gaidar Institute Publishing House has published a Russian translation of Joseph Vogl’s book “Calculation and Passion. The Poetics of the Economic Man.” The author, professor at Humboldt University in Berlin, philosopher, specialist in German literature and culture scholar, explores the relationship between the development of economic knowledge, economic rhetoric and literary texts. The economic activity of people began thousands of years ago, but the formation of disparate economic knowledge into an independent theoretical discipline actually began only in the 17–18th centuries in Europe. From Vogl’s point of view, the transition from simple registration and religious or ethical assessment of facts of economic life to the analysis of the motives of an individual’s actions, their interaction with other individuals and factors of decision-making under given conditions was largely prepared by the evolution of not only the ways of describing economic realities (for example, using dual-entry accounting) but also general methods of narration about human and social life. Rhetorical and expressive techniques, initially applied by European novelists and playwriters, proved to be in demand by the founders of political economy and understandable to their audience. Using numerous examples from European literary monuments, the book’s author shows how those methods of description and argumentation were gradually formed, which eventually made the economic view of man possible. In the development of Vogl’s logic, the paper also attempts to outline promising directions for studying the interaction of literature, art and economic thought in subsequent periods, against the background of the ongoing transformation of aesthetic ideals and methods of narration, affecting both artistic genres and scientific literature.