Subject, method and functions of economic theory

2.2 Method of scientific abstraction

The economic activity of people is complex and diverse and replete with contradictions. There are many different branches of production between which, on certain principles, the distribution of resources in a limited amount takes place. Each industry consists of tens or thousands of large and small producers, bound friend with a friend technologically, organizationally or through financial interests. Each of the manufacturers in the industry pursues its own interests by competing with other manufacturers. Millions of consumers are interested in purchasing high-quality goods at low prices, while manufacturers are interested in the opposite. Tastes, preferences, addictions change, dictates its requirements changeable fashion. Government activity is changing the income level of the population and the conditions for the implementation of entrepreneurial activity. Bad weather can affect the size of agricultural production, change the existing structure of consumer spending, affect demand certain types products. Uneven economic growth changes the level of employment, which, in turn, inevitably affects fluctuations in demand, scientific and technological progress changes the structure of production, affects employment and demand for resources and final products. List of components economic life can be continued almost indefinitely. In this case, all named and unnamed elements and circumstances economic activity are situated in close connection each other and are influenced by each other.

In order not to get confused in myriads of facts, not to drown in their diversity and inconsistency, economic science, which wants to understand the essence of the phenomena of economic life and formulate cause-and-effect relationships between them, widely uses the method of scientific abstraction. It consists in highlighting the main thing in the object of study and abstraction from the insignificant, random, temporary, non-permanent. The level of abstraction may be different depending on the tasks that the researcher sets himself. The more general the revealed patterns are, the greater the level of abstraction can be. Of course, abstraction is always poorer than concrete reality, but without it it is impossible to formulate the scientific categories that economic science operates with. These categories express the essence of individual aspects of the objects under study. Thus, for example, the widely used category of “quantity of demand”, which reflects the relationship between the quantity of goods that consumers are willing to buy and the price of its unit, offers an abstraction from many parameters that characterize the behavior of consumers in the market - changes in their incomes, tastes, preferences. , the presence of traditions, personality traits individual consumers, etc.

The method of scientific abstraction is used to build economic models - simplified representations of the relationships between economic variables. Economic variables are any natural or monetary values ​​that have a quantitative estimate, for example, the volume of production, wage, costs, prices, etc. Some variables in the model can be presented as given (they are called parameters). Parameters can be determined by both external (exogenous) and internal (endogenous) causes. So, the amount of costs for the company's products may depend on the amount of income tax established by the state, i.e. is set exogenously, and on the applied technology, which acts as an endogenous factor.

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In a situation where a person is expected to explain a picture that is incomprehensible to him in terms of content (the reasons for this can be very different), you can hear a remark: “Something abstract (if you read between the lines - art for the sake of art without semantic load)”. However, has the Reader ever thought about what is meant by the word "abstraction" and is it so rarely necessary to resort to abstraction in everyday life?

How abstraction manifests itself in human life

The term "abstraction" is latin roots. Formed with the help of the prefix ab - "from" and the word traho - translated as "pull", "pull". So it turns out that the conversation is about distraction. In encyclopedias and dictionaries, one can find the explanation of a word as a method of research, scientific knowledge, the process of abstracting an object from its non-essential features. To clarify the situation, it is enough to turn to the origins.

With the birth of a person, the process of personality formation starts. One of the main factors in the development of the child is the gradual (from simple to complex forms) the formation of mental operations (thinking). Thinking is the process of cognition of the surrounding world, presented in three main forms: concept, judgment and conclusion. There is a direct relationship between the development of thinking and language acquisition.

Yes, in infancy the child only masters human speech, therefore, when perceiving and studying the world around him, he relies on the most primitive kind of thinking - concretely effective or practical. Its essence is that the child learns object world by collecting as much information about it as possible (color, shape, hardness, softness, can be broken or thrown on the floor without consequences, taste, edibility, etc.). This process is inherent in nature at the genetic level, so young children often behave “riskyly”: they put everything in their mouths (except for the moment when teeth appear), throw, crumple, shake almost everything that falls into their hands. However, knowledge practical application things ends by about 2-3.5 years (with normal development), and the next stage in the development of thinking lasts up to about 5-6.5 years.

Expands by age three vocabulary kid, intonational repertoire, he diligently imitates the behavior of significant adults. This is a good ground for the formation of a concrete-figurative (visual - figurative) or artistic type of thinking. Sufficient baggage of knowledge about the surrounding world has been accumulated in the form of images: the fox is red, lives in the forest, is cunning; a chicken is a bird, lives at home, a source of eggs, etc. The child confidently operates with images known to him, so speech becomes smoother, framed in sentences, and not in short sentences, but an independent identification of cause-and-effect relationships of the plot of a fairy tale will be available only at the next stage in the development of thinking (a sufficient amount of evidence for this statement can be found in Korney Chukovsky’s book “From Three to Five”).

A five-year-old preschooler, relying on concrete-figurative thinking, successfully masters verbal-logical or abstract form. The child can independently identify and distinguish between species, genera, categories. His speech is improving, including different kind explanations ("because" ...), logical conclusions and conclusions. The structure of sentences used in speech becomes much more complicated, “distractions”, fantasies appear.

It can be concluded that a person comes to abstraction before he knows the meaning of this term.

Does abstract thinking exist?

Many Internet resources describe abstract thinking as a kind of super-valuable education (while replacing concepts and misleading the reader). In fact, this is sometimes called for shortening verbal-logical thinking, the features of which have been described above. It should be noted that the absence of verbal and logical operations in children six years of age is interpreted during a diagnostic examination as a developmental delay, and under some circumstances - and intellectual deficiency. The complete absence of this type of thinking or its impaired formation is observed in all people with oligophrenia.

Abstraction as a method and artistic technique

What is abstraction in history? In historical retrospect, it reveals itself for the first time among the Ancient Greeks. Naturally, this manifests itself in the use of abstract categories when describing objects, for example: solid - in the subject-specific dictionary "like a stone", round - "like the moon". Contributed to the formation and development of the method of abstraction and oratory(revered in Greek policies) - the ability to formulate logical conclusions and convince listeners of their correctness.

What is abstraction in scientific knowledge? This is a distraction from the unimportant for the solved in this moment object properties and relations tasks. As a result of the study, an abstraction or an abstract object appears.

What is abstraction in the environment of sculptors? AT fine arts abstraction resulted in abstractionism, which became a kind of continuation of impressionism. If the Impressionists (from the French “impression”) conveyed their emotions, experiences, mainly preserving the recognizable shape of objects, then the Abstractionists sought to develop a universal visual language of shapes and colors that went beyond the physical and cultural boundaries of the viewer. The paintings of artists are a kind of transmission of ideas and emotions through an interconnected rhythm of color, shape, texture. Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Piet Mondrian stood at the origins of this art.

Classification of abstraction types

What is abstraction from the point of view of scientific knowledge? Gradually distracting from a number of properties of the object, you can get an abstract chain: honey badger - animal - creature- material object - matter, in which the highest form of abstraction is the category of philosophy. According to the tasks to be solved, the abstraction process can be divided into the following types:

• idealizing abstraction - provides for the isolation of the "ideal model of the object", in everyday life it manifests itself in such concepts as "ideal teacher", "ideal student, worker". Often claimed as a role model;
• abstraction - generalization - there is a distraction from the individual characteristics of the object based on belonging to one or another class, for example: a saucepan, a frying pan, a ladle, a stewpan become "kitchen utensils";
• isolating abstraction is the selection of one of the features of an object, and giving it independence in the form of a certain category, for example: "stability", "solubility", "magnetism", "beauty", etc.

In the above examples of abstraction, one can notice the basic principle - the exclusion of individual characteristics of objects and objects in order to derive any patterns, therefore this method is called eliminative (literal translation from Latin - expel, exclude, delete).

Theories of abstraction

There are two abstraction theories:

• eliminative;
• productive.

Productive abstraction is based on the postulates:

Abstraction is a new object, and "universal abstractions" exist independently of our consciousness in the so-called "world of ideas".

Formal logic has no power over productive abstractions, which gravitate more towards the "logic of the whole" (such a statement is based on the concept of an idea in a productive abstraction, as a set of smaller ideas, in relation to which the main one is more "whole" than "general"). Ernst Cassirer calls this idea a "function". However, it should be noted that the logic of productive abstractions has not been studied enough, so the comparison of eliminative and productive abstraction is temporarily not possible.

Scopes of abstraction

It is easy to see that basically the conceptual apparatus of the described phenomenon is scientific language. Therefore, abstraction is the leading scientific method (both in the humanities and in the natural sciences).

This happens in connection with the possibility of constructing abstract schemes and scenarios for the course of real processes, revealing implicit patterns.

The logical (theoretical) approach to the study of these same phenomena does not serve as a mirror reflection of their historical path. It involves penetration into the essence of the phenomenon under study and abstraction, i.e. distraction from its secondary properties. As a result, a scientific understanding of this phenomenon arises, i.e. a logical concept is formed, or an economic category, for example, a product, price, money, competition, etc. This way of studying is called the method of scientific abstraction.

The method of scientific abstraction (abstraction) consists in abstraction in the process of cognition from external phenomena, insignificant details and highlighting the essence of an object or phenomenon. As a result of these assumptions, it is possible to develop, for example, scientific concepts, expressing the most general properties and connections of the phenomena of reality - categories. Thus, abstracting from the countless differences in external properties produced in the world of millions of different goods, we combine them into one economic category - goods, fixing the main thing that unites various goods - these are products intended for sale.

The most widely used in the course is the method of scientific abstraction, i.e. liberation of ideas about the subject and object of research from the particular, random, atypical, short-term, single and, on the contrary, finding in them the essential, general, permanent. Then the movement from the general to the particular begins.

The method of scientific abstraction requires the study of phenomena in their most developed, mature form. So, for example, when studying capitalism, K. Marx takes England as a model, as a country in which bourgeois production relations reached their highest development in that period.

The method of scientific abstraction allowed K. Marx to consider the movement of capital in the most general view, reveal the internal laws of the reproduction of social capital and show its main trends.

If the subject of science reveals what is known, then the method reveals how it is known. Economic theory uses a wide range of methods of scientific knowledge. The most important of them is the method of scientific abstraction - a conscious abstraction from everything random that does not correspond to the nature of the subject being studied. With the help of this method, economic categories are formed, that is, special concepts that reflect the content of economic phenomena (for example, goods, money, price).

Method of scientific abstraction (abstraction - distraction).

The method of scientific abstraction is also used to build economic models - simplified representations of the relationships between economic variables. Economic variables are any natural or monetary values ​​that have a quantitative estimate, for example, production volume, wages, costs, prices, etc. Some variables in the model can be presented as given (they are called parameters). Parameters can be determined by both external (exogenous) and internal (endogenous) causes. Thus, the amount of costs for the company's products may depend on the amount of income tax established by the state, that is, it is set exogenously, and on the technology used, which acts as an endogenous factor.

Analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction appear as forms of the method of scientific abstraction, since they are associated with abstraction and generalizations. Analysis in economic theory is the mental division of the subject of a given science or its individual links into its component parts and their subsequent separate study. Within the framework of a systematic, interdisciplinary approach to the consideration of economic relations, the so-called

Synthesis is an independent method of scientific research, consisting in the knowledge of a given phenomenon as a whole. Synthesis in economic theory is a combination of obtained as a result of analysis, but still disparate, uncoordinated knowledge. At this stage of the study, there is a need for abstraction, generalizations and conclusions are made, which synthetic method knowledge with the method of scientific abstraction. The results of the synthesis, being the result of a previously conducted analysis, themselves have an active feedback effect on it by concretizing and clarifying scientific tasks arising from the whole picture economic relations.  

The method of scientific abstraction is also associated with such particular methods of studying economic phenomena as analogy, economic modeling, marginal analysis, and also the abstract assumption "ceteris paribus".

Describe the method of scientific abstraction and give examples of scientific abstraction in the study of economic relations.

Method of scientific abstraction. Its essence is the purification of the object under study from the particular, random, transient and the allocation of the essential, permanent, typical. The result of scientific abstraction is

Modern R. is characterized, on the one hand, by the concentration of capital and the development of corporate forms of business organization, and, on the other hand, by the preservation of many small commodity producers with their inherent entrepreneurial spirit, flexibility, and adaptability. MARKET OF FREE COMPETITION - an ideal model of market relations, where all sellers and all buyers have equal rights, have complete freedom and ease of action. This model, being a scientific abstraction, serves as one of the methods for studying the real market.

Method is a way of research. Specific research tools (i.e. research methods) of the subject of financial management are scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, qualitative and quantitative analysis, economic and mathematical modeling of financial processes.

The method of scientific abstractions, or abstraction, is used to develop certain abstract concepts - the so-called ABSTRACTIONS, or CATEGORIES2 (such as price, money, cheap, expensive, etc.). To obtain any scientific abstraction, scientists abstract from the secondary properties of the object under study, and highlight the properties they need. Let's say to define

Exercise 1

Scientific abstractions and economic categories

Introduction

Economic phenomena cannot be weighed on a scale, put under a microscope, or illuminated with an x-ray; they cannot be placed in a laboratory setting to be experimented upon. Economic processes do not proceed in a "pure" form. They are woven into the complex fabric of real social life, turning out to be "colored" in the colors of political, social, psychological and many other phenomena. Therefore, as the main means of their knowledge, abstraction is used, i.e. distraction from everything that does not correspond to the nature of the subject being studied.
At first glance, it may seem that abstraction separates economic knowledge from reality. However, this is a delusion: abstraction does not lead away from reality, but, on the contrary, brings it closer to it, to that true order that is hidden behind a heap of separate facts and various events. This is what practical the meaning of abstraction and concepts obtained on the basis of abstract analysis, reflecting the content of economic phenomena (" economic categories).
In this regard, it is important to consider the issue of scientific abstractions.
Considering the topic “Scientific abstractions and economic categories”, it is necessary first of all to consider the concept of “method”, list the methods of economic research and consider the method of scientific abstractions in more detail.

Methods of economic theory

Methodology is the science of methods. Methodology of economic theory - the science of methods for studying economic phenomena. It presupposes the existence of a general approach to the study of economic phenomena.

The concept of a method
The method, which in Greek means "the path of research, cognition", as well as "theory, teaching", is a set of methods and techniques for cognizing reality, due to the characteristics of the object and subject of research. Just like every object of labor in economic practice the best way certain tools of labor correspond, each subject of research in the field of economic theory has its own means of knowledge, which are research methods.

General scientific research methods

General scientific methods include universal methods of research, which are used to some extent by every science and every science. scientific theory. The most common of these are the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete, analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, and in the social sciences the method of the unity of the logical and the historical.

Climbing from the abstract to the concrete

The most important method of studying reality, characteristic of any science, scientific thinking in general, is the method of ascent from the abstract to the concrete. . To correctly understand its essence, one must have a correct understanding of the categories of the concrete and the abstract.
Specific with scientific point vision is, firstly, a real object, reality in all the richness of its content. Secondly, it is a reflection of this reality, concrete scientific knowledge about it, which is the result of sensory perception and thinking. In the second meaning, the concrete exists in the form of a system of theoretical concepts and categories. “The concrete is concrete because it is a synthesis of many determinations, and therefore the unity of the manifold. In thinking it appears as a process of synthesis, as a result, and not as a starting point, although it is a real starting point and, consequently, also a starting point for contemplation and representation".
The abstract, or abstraction, is the result of abstraction - the process of thinking, the essence of which lies in the mental abstraction from a number of non-essential properties of a real object and, thereby, in highlighting it basic properties shared with other objects. Abstractions are "abbreviations in which we embrace, according to their general properties, many different sensually perceived things ". Examples of abstractions include such concepts as "man" or "house". In the first case, thinking is abstracted from such human characteristics as race, nationality, gender, age, in the second - from the diversity of species The same abstraction is the category "economy", since it lacks features that characterize the set of economic relations inherent in any real economy.
Based on such a scientific understanding of the concrete and the abstract, it can be argued that the objects and phenomena of reality are always concrete. , and their ordinary or scientific definitions are always abstract. This is explained by the fact that the organs of human sensory perception are capable of capturing only certain aspects, properties and relationships of real objects. Imagine an object in all its concreteness, with all its elements, their internal and external relations a person can only through thinking, moving step by step from superficial perception to understanding its deep, essential connections. That is why this process of thinking is called the ascent from the abstract to the concrete.
In general, the process of scientific knowledge of reality is carried out in two interrelated and interdependent ways: by the movement of thought from specific objects of knowledge, given in their sensory perception, to abstractions (this path is also called the movement from the concrete to the abstract, from the particular to the general, or from facts to generalizations) and by ascending from the abstract to the concrete, the essence of which is to get an idea of ​​reality through understanding the abstractions obtained.

Thus, on the one hand, methods - this is the result of cognition, generalization of open laws, and on the other hand - a means of further cognition, based on already existing concepts and laws. Economic theory widely uses the methods of other sciences, and also develops its own specific research methods. There are usually three groups of methods:

formal logic (from lat. Forma - appearance);
dialectical logic (from Gr. Dialektike - the art of conversation, polemics);
mathematical logic.

It is important to choose and use exactly the method that would make it possible to most effectively (from the Latin Effeclus - performance, action) to investigate a certain phenomenon. The specificity (from Latin Specificus - special) of economic research lies in the fact that a laboratory experiment is impossible in economics. Any economic idea can be tested only on real production or people, and often on the whole society (for example, one-time price liberalization in Ukraine in the early 90s of the XX century). The method of cognition is usually understood as a way to achieve the goal. It is a working tool, a means of knowing the subject that is being studied.
In the methodology of general economic theory, there are several approaches (subjectivist, rationalistic, dialectical-materialistic, etc.), among which the dialectical-materialistic approach is considered the only correct one. Dialectical materialism teaches that everything is in development, that all phenomena must be considered not in isolation, but in interconnection, that the source of all development must be sought not outside, but within phenomena, in those contradictions that constitute the content of phenomena.
The dialectical approach also proceeds from the fact that in nature and society development proceeds from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher. A complex relationship can appear only after the simple one that precedes it has developed. The transition from the simple to the complex is the transition to a new quality.
Materialistic dialectics establishes that the process of development proceeds "in a spiral", each new stage of development differs from the previous stage and at the same time repeats those features that were characteristic of an even earlier stage of development.
Methodology cannot be identified with methods - a set of specific methods and techniques used in the study of a particular reality.
Economic theory uses a wide range of methods of scientific knowledge.

Economic reality as a whole, the entire system of economic practice is the object of study for economic theory. Economic practice, reflected in the totality of economic categories and laws, takes the form of a subject of science. The structural organization of theoretical knowledge is carried out through a system of scientific categories and laws. Each science cognizes its subject through a system of methods - means and methods used in the research process.
Economic theory is based on general scientific methods of cognition. Starting from the simplest methods (observation, comparison, generalization, grouping, etc.), economic and theoretical research develops using the methods of analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, quantitative and qualitative approaches to economic phenomena, their historical and logical understanding. In economic theory, methods of modeling, formalization, including mathematical formalization, are widely used.
Of particular importance for economic science is the method of abstraction. Economic processes, as a rule, are very complex and diverse, they develop under the influence of various reasons. In the course of scientific knowledge, the task arises of identifying the main, essential elements and aspects of economic reality and distracting from secondary and unimportant aspects. This task is solved by the operation of abstraction, the result of which is scientific abstractions - concepts, categories, laws of science, reflecting the essence of economic reality. The role of the abstraction method also increases due to the fact that economic interests and contradictions do not always have the quality of direct observability; the essence of interests and contradictions is often hidden behind many "layers" external manifestations and deformations.
Thus, abstraction is used to develop certain abstract concepts or categories. , such as price, money, cheap, expensive, etc. For example, to determine such an economic category as a product, it is necessary to ignore the size, weight, color and other characteristics that are not significant in this case, and at the same time fix the unifying their property: all these things are products of labor intended for sale.
It turns out that when studying the functioning of the economy and putting forward requirements for the mechanism, the results of this functioning, economics as a science uses certain research methods ( method is a way, a way of studying an object). How does economics study its subject?
When analyzing economic processes economists select facts, generalize them, establish cause-and-effect relationships, and identify patterns using general scientific research methods: scientific abstraction, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, hypothesis proposition and testing, modeling, experimentation, etc. The following classification can be considered acceptable:

scientific abstraction

Scientific abstraction is a general scientific method of cognition.
So, the reproduction of social capital is a very complex problem. In order to reveal its main regularities, K. Marx abstracted from those phenomena that, without having a significant impact on the content of processes, complicate their understanding.
Scientific abstractions are generalized concepts developed by people in their thinking, abstracted from the direct concreteness of the phenomenon under study, but reflecting its main content. . scientific abstraction is used both at the level of a qualitative theoretical analysis of the processes occurring in the sphere of financial relations, and at the level of a quantitative study of these processes, to identify quantitative relationships and dependencies between financial indicators.
Scientific abstractions and methods do not distort, but reflect the main thing in the real phenomena of movement, allowing a deeper understanding of the determining aspects of these processes, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
Method scientific abstraction requires the study of phenomena in their most developed, mature form.
Method scientific abstraction (abstraction) consists in abstracting in the process of cognition from external phenomena, insignificant details and highlighting the essence of an object or phenomenon. As a result of these assumptions, it is possible to develop, for example, scientific concepts that express the most general properties and connections of phenomena of reality - categories. So, abstracting from the countless differences in external properties produced in the world of millions of different goods, we combine them into one economic category - goods, fixing the main thing that unites various goods - this is products intended for sale.
On the other hand, scientific abstraction as a method of in-depth knowledge of reality is based on the release of information material from random, insignificant and the allocation of stable, typical in it. The results of applying the method of scientific abstraction, its product is theoretical abstractions, scientific concepts, categories, economic laws.
Role scientific abstraction in the study of finance is very large, since in the analysis of financial relations it is impossible to use technical means, unlike the natural sciences.
etc.................

The word method comes from Greek word"methodos", i.e. “the path to some goal”, meaning ways of knowing, a set of techniques and tools for studying natural and social phenomena. Any science has its own method, inextricably linked with its subject. After all, the method contributes to a deeper and more accurate comprehension of the subject of science. It is independently born and develops, improving in the process of obtaining more and more new knowledge. To some extent, we can say that the subject itself builds a method and, on the contrary, the method used in the study more and more clearly defines the content and boundaries of the subject itself.

scientific knowledge methods of economic theory are attributed to the distant times of antiquity, when the ancient Greek scientist Aristotle (384-322 BC) in his writings formulated the main principles of knowledge of both economic and social life with the help of the science of the forms and laws of thinking - logic. Such methods of knowledge formulated by Aristotle as analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy and some others are still used today in the analysis of economic processes and phenomena. Of course, as the subject of economic theory developed and became more complex, the methods of its cognition, its techniques, and methods for verifying the correctness of the knowledge obtained in the course of scientific analysis. It should be noted that there is a method of economic science in broad sense, meaning a set of research methods and tools, as well as a method as a synonym for the method of scientific analysis, a form of showing the results obtained ( graphic method), data processing method (for example, a mathematical method). In this article, the word method must be understood in its narrow sense.

In economic theory, a fairly large number of methods for searching for new knowledge have been developed that reflect the specifics of its subject. Indeed, the economic sphere of human activity cannot be analyzed using, for example, chemical reactions or physical experiments as is customary in the natural sciences. Economic theory is humanitarian, social science which is reflected in the narrowing of the possibilities of experimentation in the process of studying the economic life of society.

Economic science uses different methods of cognition of the sphere of economic activity, the main of which are analysis, synthesis, induction, deduction, analogy.

Analysis- a method of cognition, involving the division of one whole into separate components and the study of each separately. An example is the study of the laws of formation of demand in the market by studying the factors that determine it - prices, incomes, consumer preferences, etc.

Synthesis- a method of cognition, which is based on the connection of individual parts of processes into a single whole. For example, market demand and its dynamics can be perceived only when it is studied as a whole, coupled with its components - prices, consumer incomes, etc. Analysis and synthesis are two interrelated aspects of the process of cognition.

Induction is a method of cognition, which is based on inferences from the particular to the general. Thus, the utility for an individual consumer of each subsequent type of the same good purchased by him decreases. Therefore, we can conclude that all consumers of this product will be ready to purchase this product only if its price decreases.

Deduction- a method of cognition that involves inferences from the general to the particular. An example, a general conclusion: all the military have an excellent noticeable posture. Therefore, seeing a person on the street with such a posture, despite the fact that he is dressed in civilian clothes, we can conclude that he is related to the military. By the way, that's right famous detective Sherlock Holmes guessed the former profession of the military doctor Dr. Watson.

Analogy- a method of cognition, which involves the transfer of properties from a known phenomenon to the unknown. Achievements in various fields knowledge. For example, money circulation is often compared to the circulatory system in human body, and market equilibrium is conditionally similar to equilibrium in its physical sense.

All economic activity of people is diverse and complex, replete with contradictions and ambiguities. There are many different branches of production between which, on certain principles, the distribution of resources that are in limited quantities is carried out. Each sector of the economy consists of tens or even hundreds, thousands of small and large producers, which are somehow connected with each other organizationally, technologically or financially. Each manufacturer in the industry pursues its own interests while competing with other manufacturers. All consumers are interested in buying only high-quality goods at low prices, and manufacturers are vice versa. Tastes, preferences, preferences are constantly changing, fashion dictates its own trends. The government, through its activities, changes the level of income of the population of the country and the conditions for doing business. Bad weather can affect the volume of agricultural production, while changing the structure of consumer spending and influencing the demand for certain types of products. Uneven economic growth affects the level of employment, which, in turn, necessarily affects fluctuations in demand, new technologies change the structure of production, affect employment and demand for resources and final goods. The list of components of economic life can go on and on. All these circumstances and elements of economic life, named and unnamed above, are closely interconnected and influenced by each other.

Economic science, wishing to understand the whole essence of the phenomena of economic life and to determine the causal relationships between them, uses method of scientific abstraction in order not to get confused in the whole multitude of mentioned and unmentioned facts, not to drown in their inconsistency and diversity. This method consists in highlighting the main thing in the object of study, but at the same time abstracting from the optional, temporary, random, non-permanent. The level of abstraction depends on the tasks set by the researchers. The more general the patterns under study are, the greater the level of abstraction can be. Undoubtedly, abstraction is always poorer than reality itself, but still, without it, it would be difficult to formulate certain scientific categories with which economic science operates. These categories express common essence some aspects of the studied objects. For example, such a category as “quantity of demand”, which is widely used and reflects the existing relationship between the amount of a product that consumers are willing to purchase and the unit price of this product, involves abstracting from a variety of parameters that characterize the behavior of consumers in the market - the change in income , tastes, preferences, traditions, personal characteristics, etc.

Also, using the method of scientific abstraction, the construction of economic models, which are simplified representations of the existing relationships between different economic variables. All of them (variables) are various monetary or natural values ​​that have a quantitative assessment (wages, output, costs, inflation, prices, exchange rates, etc.). Certain variables contained in the model can be represented as given and are called parameters. These parameters can be defined as internal ( endogenous) and external ( exogenous) reasons. For example, the amount of costs required for the production of a firm's products may depend on the size of the state-established income tax, i.e. is set exogenous, as well as from the technology used in production, acting as an endogenous factor.

All economic models are developed to identify any principles that underlie economic activity and forecasting. possible consequences changes to certain elements. The resulting scientific conclusions and conclusions that are formulated on the basis of the study of models are called hypotheses- test statements about the absence or presence of certain causal relationships between certain phenomena and processes of economic activity. For example, the existing efficient market hypothesis, which states that the stock prices set on the stock exchange reflect and take into account all publicly available information. The falsity and truth of the presented hypothesis is checked by comparing it with real facts. The way in which a hypothesis is tested for truth is called verification. The method by which a hypothesis is tested to be false is called falsification. The totality of all verified hypotheses is theory- the sum of the combined general principle scientific statements which serve to explain certain facts of economic life.

In the process of analyzing the phenomena of economic activity, a situation may arise when quite correct explanation facts are given as a result several theories of different complexity. In such a case, preference is mainly given to the most simple theory according to the principle “ Occam's razors”, named after the 14th-century English philosopher William of Ockham, who proposed to “shave off” those details that complicate the theory and are not necessary to explain the facts under study, as well as the connections between them.

When developing economic models and formulating theories, economics learns the existing economic laws, - stable causal relationships between various phenomena of economic life. For example, the law of demand shows inverse relationship between the price of most goods (there are exceptions) and the amount of consumer demand for them. Economic laws have an objective character, i.e. they act and exist independently of consciousness, desire or will individual people, groups of people, and the state. These laws can be investigated by economic science, but cannot be created by it. The discovery of economic laws is one of the most important functions of economic science and is of great importance. practical value because it is only through the analysis of these laws that the state can build an effective economic policy.

In the process of building economic models, identifying theories, formulating economic laws, economics widely uses the so-called functional analysis method, which reflects the principle of mutual dependence of economic phenomena. A function is a variable that depends on other variables. Thus, the function is a dependent variable of argument- independent variable. An example is the demand function, which determines demand depending on the factors (arguments) influencing it - the level of income of consumers, their expectations, tastes, preferences, prices of substitute goods, etc. Most often in economic theory, the functional dependence is determined only between two variables, the rest are assumed to be unchanged. This is done to simplify the research process itself, because simultaneous analysis of all or most of the arguments at once would complicate the process of analysis so much that it would become practically impossible. For example, the essence of the above can be considered on the basis of identifying the demand level of the price for a certain product, where demand is a function, and price is an argument. The remaining arguments, except for the price, are considered unchanged. In this case, demand is a function of price. However, quite often the function and argument can be swapped. And then, the price of the goods can become the dependent variable - after all, ceteris paribus, it depends on the amount of demand. In this case, price is a function of demand.

For a more visual manifestation of functional dependencies, we use graphic constructions within the framework of econometric modeling of economic processes. Econometrics- the science of measurements in economics, the results of which are used by economic theory. The widespread use of graphs makes it possible to visualize the existing functional relationships, both in statics and in dynamics, which are determined by changes in various indicators. Used by economists, the graphical method has an interesting feature - it has an independent variable ( argument) is mainly deposited on the y-axis, and the dependent ( function) - on the x-axis, which is due to the traditions that have developed in economics.

The article often contains the expression "ceteris paribus"(from lat. ceteris paribus). This is one of the important principles, quite often used in economic research to identify the functional relationships that arise between economic phenomena. Indeed, in order to trace the effect of the price of a commodity on demand, it is necessary to assume that the other arguments that affect demand in one way or another remain unchanged. Otherwise, it will not be possible to reveal the simultaneous influence of all factors on the volume of demand and to single out in this aggregate the effect of the price itself. In practice, it is quite difficult to ensure the "purity of the experiment", because "other equal conditions» are constantly changing (fashion, tastes, preferences, expectations). As a result, the accuracy of the conclusions obtained in economic science is much inferior to those natural sciences like physics, chemistry, etc., where you can ensure the purity of the experiment and the accuracy of the results in the laboratory.

In the process of tracing the cause-and-effect relationships that arise between economic phenomena, one can often observe a time gap between cause and effect. For example, an increase in the price of a certain product can almost immediately lead to a decrease in the quantity demanded, and the introduction of large amount money, not backed by the mass of commodities, will cause inflation only after a few months. In both cases, the cause precedes the effect. The question arises: “If an event occurs later than another, does this mean that it is its cause?”. Of course not. Just as the ringing of an alarm clock is not at all the cause of the onset of morning, so are many consecutive economic phenomena may not be in a causal relationship. For example, if, after the rise in prices for down jackets, their sales volumes also increased, then the conclusion that the increase in demand was the reason for the increase in prices will be incorrect. Here, the reason may be a completely different circumstance, for example, fashion, due to which the demand for down jackets has increased. Namely, the correct identification of causal relationships in economic life is a rather difficult task.

A lot of functional dependencies in the economy are explored through the use of limit analysis method. In economics, limit value is an additional value. For example, marginal utility is the additional utility that a consumer receives as a result of using additional unit good. Marginal revenue is the additional revenue a firm earns from selling an additional unit of its product. Marginal cost is the additional cost of a firm to produce an additional unit of its output, and so on. One of the important principles economic analysis- comparison of marginal costs and marginal benefits in the process of assessing the state and future prospects activities of economic agents. It is clear that these same agents will continue to conduct their activities only when the marginal benefits from it will be greater than the marginal costs. The motivation to continue economic activity disappears as soon as marginal costs begin to exceed marginal benefits.

It should be noted that using the method of "marginal benefits - marginal costs", as the supporters of "economic imperialism" believe, one can analyze not only economic behavior. Let's say that you have a great desire to throw a stone at someone else's garden. You, as a rational thinker, naturally compare your marginal benefits, such as the pleasure of watching the flight and landing of a stone, and the marginal costs, such as having to explain to a neighbor later or be subject to litigation. Here, your opinion will depend entirely on how correctly you can evaluate the ratio of these two limit values.

When the decision of one subject affects the decision of another, economic science, in order to study the interactions that have arisen between them, resorts to game theory which deals with general analysis strategic interaction between economic agents. Game theory can be used to explain emerging relationships between firms in the market, participants in political negotiations, players in gambling, as well as the behavior of consumers and producers.

Regarding use in research economic and mathematical method of analysis, it should be noted that it is quite productive, but only as long as it is a convenient form for the perception of economic content. Sometimes there is a separation of form from content and the applied economic and mathematical models begin to adhere to their own logic of development, which entails the appearance of erroneous conclusions.

Economics has a huge forecasting potential. Political decisions, based on the various findings of positive and normative economics, may in some cases be the most useful and effective of all available options. But, you should not constantly blindly resort to this method, because. unforeseen consequences may arise at any time, when the applied decisions entail unplanned, and sometimes directly opposite results. One of the phrases of the former Prime Minister of the Russian Federation V.S. Chernomyrdin became winged: “ We wanted the best, but it turned out as always ...» Do not forget about it.