Abstract

The Biopsychosocial (BPS) Model of Economics provides a philosophical and practical approach that integrates epistemology, anthropology and ethical domains of economics that conjoins evolutionary and cognitive neuroscience to a more meaningful understanding of agent- and community-based resource valuation, utilization and allocation. Building upon the core philosophical tasks of epistemology, anthropology, and ethics, we present an evolutionary and cognitive neuroscientifically relevant view of economics as resource valuation within a framework of human ecology. We argue that the agentic “individual intelligence” of economics has merged with – and been facilitated by - “collective intelligence” that accumulates intellectual capital and achieves iterative progress through biologic and socio-cultural evolution. Thus, by understanding the biological bases of both individual and collective intelligence relevant to ecological resource valuation, use and distribution, we argue that a more finely-grained address and appreciation may be gained for economics as the cognitive and behavioral strategies and tactics of agents-in-community. Thus, we posit that the interaction and synergy between the natural and social sciences will enable a more accurate description of the complex reality that is economics. We opine that this synergy could be enacted through multidisciplinary dialog within the university. We therefore argue that the university is an essential forum and nexus for creating spaces to both explore logos, diá-logos, and communication between economics and other sciences, and ground such pursuits to ethical responsibility.