It follows from questions Q-Q of the interview that the price defines the current value of the object auctioned. The process of accepting or amending the price seems to be, at least to an extent, both irrational and random. How much irrational or how much rational is that process? To answer this question, we have to elucidate the nature of value.

In philosophy, the study of value is called axiology, derived from the Greek – (worth), and – (the knowledge of). Axiology was developed a century ago, mainly by Paul Lapin (1902) and E. von Hartmann (1908). It focuses on two kinds of “values”: aesthetics and ethics. The former studies what beauty and harmony are, while the latter puts emphasis on what is wrong and what is right in the social conduct of individuals. A mathematical approach to this topic, resulting in formal axiology, is the brainchild of Robert S. Hartman (1967). Hartman’s contribution is unique in the sense that his Formal Axiology is the only social science in which a one-to-one relationship exists between the dimensions of axiology and mathematics.

If axiology is viewed as a collective name for aesthetics and ethics, it is similar to value theory. The latter teaches about the value of things. A thing in this context may be anything: an object, a person, or an idea. The study encompasses what people value, how they value it and why they value it. The results may be slightly different in the fields of philosophy, psychology, economics, or sociology.

In the realm of psychology, value theory is applied to the study of how people are affected by their values. The object of study is how people develop a set of values, and how they subsequently profess and believe in these values. Even more important is how people act or fail to act on their values.

The answer to the question how human behaviour may be guided, fail to be guided or be misguided by a set of values, or why people choose or prefer some things to others, or why and how certain values emerge at different stages of human physical and intellectual development, has not been found yet.

Human beings are social animals and as such animals, they congregate in groups and communities. Each group or community may have its own values, usually different from the values and priorities of another community. The community values interact with personal values. The nature of the interaction and its impact on personal values or their change is the subject of sociological studies. Among prominent scientists who studied these topics, viewing value as an independent variable, we find Max Weber, Jürgen Habermas, or Émile Durkheim.

Returning to the axiology view, the value can be viewed as relations between subjects and objects. Through these relations, the social, group, or individual evaluations of certain material, human or natural qualities are expressed in hierarchical and polarised forms. These forms fill ideals, needs, or desires adapted to the time and space in which they occur. Three levels can be distinguished in the determination of their essential type. They can be studied on the pragmatic level (Why?), on the syntactic level (How?), and on the semantic level (What?). Value is multidimensional: (more BS, p.1)

For this purpose, Nadine (2003) defines an axiological system S = (M, , I), where

M is the class of representative structures,

 is the class of interdependent objects or other entities

I is the class of interpretations (assignments) given to the structures.

The system S can function in a number of ways, and subsystems can be associated to it. A complex axiological system may thus be generated. Nadin (2003) has derived the following operations and relations can be established between any two axiological systems S1 and S2: