I was sponsored by “The project that dispatches young backbone teachers to study overseas” from GE fund, and studied at the Madison college of Wisconsin University from Aug. 27th 2006 to Aug. 24th 2007.

The major I studied at the Madison college of Wisconsin University was economic philosophy, and the research topic I chose was the philosophy foundation of economic basic theory. My cooperative tutor was Daniel M. Hausman. Because he is a professor in philosophy, the school I stayed at was philosophy school. However, I usually participated in academic activities at school of economics.

Daniel M. Hausman is one of the top economic philosophers all over the world who has written a large amount of works and theses with great influence. Two of his representative masterpieces have been published in Chinese versions. He is the main editor of the journal Economics and Philosophy which is of huge influence globally.

I chose two of my cooperative tutor’s courses, Philosophy of Economics and Philosophy of Social Science during the whole year at the Madison College of Wisconsin University and acquired the ability of analyzing economic questions in terms of philosophy. The main problem of the mainstream economics is utilizing too many unrealistic hypotheses, so that some basic economic theories (such as equilibrium theory) only can be established on a series of idealized premises. But in China, due to the profound discrepancy between history and culture of China and the situation of western countries, the reality is very different from the theories created by western economists, which well conform to the western national situation. Therefore it is of gigantic significance to explore China’s economic theories from the angle of philosophy and methodology. Occidental countries own a long history of exploring the fundamental methodology of economics and its philosophy base. My cooperative tutor is one of the leaders in this field and I learned a lot from him.

Professor Hausman is very hectic and presented many academic activities of different kinds all over the world. In the view of controlling my outlay, I had no chance to go with him, and yet he could always introduce some detailed information on them. During the period he stayed in Madison he could share much time to discuss specific topics with me. In terms of economic philosophy, we probed what kind of economics could better tally with China’s current situation and then become applicable to China with the significance of directing.

We talked over the effects of emotions on economic behaviors, and under his guidance I have finished the first draft of the essay called The Economic Implication of Emotion. There are three mainstays in mainstream economics, which are rational hypothesis, the model of equilibrium and stable preference supposition. But in reality, men’s reason is different from the hypothesis in economics, and man’s preference can be changed unexpectedly. Nowadays there are many scholars who seriously criticize the rational hypotheses but very few people suspect the stable preference supposition. According to common sense, our emotions make great effect on our preference, and how to obtain its laws is an important research direction. Professor Hausman thought my essay had a creative value.