Aristotle’s Chrematistike and the Current ‘Post-Economy’

Abstract

Chrematistics (gr. hrematistike) is not only a new (actually very old, but newly re-discovered) ‘word’ but simultaneously a completely new ‘perspective’ in the sense of different thinking and understanding. Moreover, chrematistics is a new paradigm of thinking and, simultaneously, a new methodology of argumentation. In short, it is the paradigm of countereconomical thinking/arguing being based in a precise distinction between economics (gr. oikonomike) and hrematistike, which was made by Aristotle in his first book of Politics. The aim of this paper is twofold. Firstly, the problem – and the aim – is to (re)open the historically present and simultaneously ‘lost’ (hidden) distinction between these two crucial categories of our times. Consequently, the aim is to develop a possible understanding of the distinction. Secondly, in this paper, I have also attempted to emphasize some of the usages of the already existing distinction at the level of the theories of philosophy and economy and the possible critiques of latter. The final but by no means lesser emphasis – and its main hypothesis- of the paper is aiming at the problem of our time in the sense that our current problems and crises are not at all possible seriously to grasp in economic, but primarily in the chrematistic categories and the possibilities of that new paradigm of thinking.