Theories of cognition, meaning and values make for interesting study, but unless they are applied to the "real world," they remain strictly hypothetical. Understanding common theories makes it possible to evaluate one's personal philosophy of cognition, meaning and value, and compare that to philosophies of the institutions with which one has interaction. Such a comparison enables one to determine where there is a disconnect between the theoretical and the practical in the real-world environment.
Understanding how we know what we know, and understanding who we are as part of the human species, are two basic components of the study of philosophy. Western civilization came to dominate much of the scholarship in these areas through the domination of its culture and the expansion - militarily, usually - of its political and economic influence. Caucasian men were the major thinkers in Western thought (for that matter, men have been the dominant thinkers in most philosophical traditions), and much of what was postulated about ontology and epistemology was postulated by white males (Mobley, 2009).
White males also created and continue to dominate the highest ranks of financial institutions. For many years, the banks operated in a highly regulated industry that was mandated to follow certain rules and to operate conservatively. Following the banking crisis of the Great Depression, financial institutions and their regulators followed a modernist approach to the business of applying conservative and "rational" decision making guides to their industry. Loans were made only when there was a high probability of borrowers being able to repay the loans, low-balance accounts such as passbook savings received high interest rates by today's standards, and banks enjoyed modest rates of return. However, just as society at large shifted to a postmodern view of the world, so the banking industry also began questioning th...