In 1920 Oxford University started the first Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) program as a modern take on classical education, “… to promote the study of the structure, philosophical, political, and economic principles of society.” Since then PPE has become a growing movement of faculty and students who see the value in this interdisciplinary perspective.
A typical PPE conversation might ask whether a particular course of action is economically or politically feasible, whether it is morally desirable, and how we might evaluate tradeoffs among competing goods. By providing students with a comprehensive view of philosophy, political science, and economics we are following in the tradition of Aristotle, Adam Smith, John Locke, Alexis de Tocqueville, Friedrich Hayek, James Buchanan, Elinor Ostrom, and others, who thought deeply about how to chart a course to a better world.
The importance of breadth is captured well in the following quotation from Friedrich Hayek, “Nobody can be a great economist who is only an economist – and I am even tempted to add that the economist who is only an economist is likely to become a nuisance if not a positive danger.”
In the FSU PPE program, students think and discuss ideas in an environment committed to open dialogue with faculty who love the joy of discovery and the pursuit of better understanding. With excellent political science, economics, and philosophy departments, the FSU PPE program is a place for exciting and energetic inquiry from a well established interdisciplinary perspective.