Abstract
A philosophy of development economics must acknowledge that the
conceptual development of economic ideas is just as important as the (micro- and
macro-) economics of development processes leading to different forms of growth
and well-being. In other words, the development of economics and the economics of
development are intertwined but in a way that brings together two different
epistemological structures: conceptual development is linked to what is normally not
measured by empirical investigations, namely the development of a mindset, a spirit
of the times, an ethos, such as moral norms (a good German philosophical word for
this descends from Hegel, namely ‘Geist’); and the economics of development processes
are measured by empirical tools available to the social sciences, particularly the field of
economics where mathematical modeling and logical deductions hold sway when data
support their hypotheses and theories. Needless to say, what underlies both is really a
theory of change, which typically falls to the philosopher to articulate. Theories of change
presuppose an understanding of the nature of time and cause-effect relations and also
at theory of motion