Frank Knight's ‘categories’ and the definition of economics

Definition of Economics in Retrospective: Two Epistemological Tensions That Explain the Change of the Study Object in Economics

“…In recent years, scholars such as [7,8] have written on the lack of a unanimous definition of economics and how the Robbins one became widely accepted; [9,10] have also written extensively on the historical origins of economics, using history of economic thought and philology; Walter [11] examined how the CSPE was a discourse style that bears little resemblance to modern economics today and how some economists retroactively project contemporary economics into the past, considering that "political economy" is still a label that many economists still fight on its definition [12]. Thus, economists are far from having unanimous reflections about the definition of economics [13]. In this sense, the study object of economics could be many things, for example, the production and distribution of wealth, the maximization of utility, the allocation of scarce resources, the psychological patterns of consumption, international trade, taxes, treasury, etc.…”