Philosophy for Finance: Theory and Practice

Financial systems have been approached basically in three ways—radical, moderate, and positive (§1). These three stances not only have been shaped by different philosophical approaches but show also the interdependence between finance and philosophy (§2). I outline the role that philosophy can play in financial practice and vice versa (§3), the specific dynamics of a ‘reverse finance’ (§4) and an interesting philosophical consequence of it (§5). Moreover, I discuss a few main issues in the emerging field of the philosophy of finance (§6), in particular in ontology, methodology, ethics, mathematical modelling, and algorithmic finance by discussing recent contributions to them.