In the following review essay I explore the limitations of effective and constructive critique of Tony Lawson’s realism in economics as articulated in Ontology and Economics. In the first section I summarize the different framing procedures that shape the different critiques. In the second section I illustrate the limitations this creates using Caldwell’s contribution and in the third section I explore the way Lawson is conditioned to respond in terms of contestation, clarification and restatement. In the fourth section I add (...) some additional detail based on Samuelson’s approach to modelling in order to illustrate what is at issue between Caldwell and Lawson and to emphasize what this suggests in terms of a common pattern across the contributions to the text. In the fifth section and in the conclusion I link the limitations of the various critiques found in Ontology and Economics to a basic issue of the vulnerability of realism to critique in order to make some suggestions regarding constructive critique and development for realism in economics. (shrink)

Explanatory unification—the urge to “explain much by little”—serves as an ideal of theorizing not only in natural sciences but also in the social sciences, most notably in economics. The ideal is occasionally challenged by appealing to the complexity and diversity of social systems and processes in space and time. This article proposes to accommodate such doubts by making a distinction between two kinds of unification and suggesting that while such doubts may be justified in regard to mere derivational unification (which (...) serves as a formal constraint on theories), it is less justified in the case of ontological unification (which is a result of factual discovery of the actual degree of underlying unity in the world). (shrink)

Recent pleas for more heterodoxy in explaining economic action have been defending a pluralism for economics. In this article, I analyse these defences by scrutinizing the pluralistic qualities in the work of one of the major voices of heterodoxy, Tony Lawson. This scrutiny will focus on Lawson's alternatives concerning ontology and explanation to mainstream economics. Subsequently, I will raise some doubts about Lawson's pluralism, and identify questions that will have to be addressed by heterodox economists in order to maintain the (...) claim of pluralism. (shrink)

Recent developments in themethodology of economics have drawn uponpragmatist and realist philosophies of socialscience. These recent developments areoutlined. It is argued that a specific variantof realist philosophy known as critical realismcan provide the basis for a prescriptiveeconomic methodology that is not susceptible topragmatist criticisms.

The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some of the (...) issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project. (shrink)

Contemporary developments in economicmethodology have produced a vibrant agenda ofcompeting positions. These include, amongothers, constructivism, critical realism andrhetoric, with each contributing to the Realistvs. Pragmatism debate in the philosophies of thesocial sciences. A major development in theneo-pragmatist contribution to economicmethodology has been Quine's pragmatic assaulton the dogmas of empiricism, which are nowclearly acknowledged within contemporaryeconomic methodology. This assault isencapsulated in the celebrated Duhem-Quinethesis, which according to a number ofcontemporary leading philosophers of economics,poses a particularly serious methodologicalproblem for economics. This problem, (...) asreflected in Hausman's analysis, consists ofthe inability of economics to learn fromexperience, thereby subverting the capacity totest economic theories. In this paper wedispute this position. Our argument is basedon a combination of Quine's holism with VanFraassen's constructive empiricism, especiallythe latter's analysis of empirical adequacy andhis pragmatic approach to explanation. Theresulting reorientation of economic methodologyrestores the capacity of economics to learnfrom experience and reinstates the imperativeof developing alternatives to orthodoxtheorizing in economics. (shrink)

Theoretical economics should not be divorced from real life. If theoretical research cannot provide a good explanation for real-world economic phenomena, then we have to question the appropriateness of the paradigm that our theoretical research follows. The battle between neoclassical macroeconomics and Keynesian economics has exposed the inadequacy of the paradigm that modern mainstream economics has followed. Neoclassical macroeconomics and Keynesian economics have the same microeconomic basis. However, the paradigm of the microeconomics on which they are based has serious flaws—the (...) scarcity hypothesis and the economic man hypothesis—do not conform to the facts. These two hypotheses are the basis for other hypotheses and principles, but neither of these two hypotheses holds up to scrutiny. Then the economics edifice built on this foundation is certainly unstable, and the corresponding economic policies are certainly not perfect. (shrink)

This essay attempts to distinguish the pressing issues for economists and economic methodologists concerning realism in economics from those issues that are of comparatively slight importance. In particular I shall argue that issues concerning the goals of science are of considerable interest in economics, unlike issues concerning the evidence for claims about unobservables, which have comparatively little relevance. In making this argument, this essay raises doubts about the two programs in contemporary economic methodology that raise the banner of realism. In (...) particular I argue that the banner makes it more difficult to relate the concerns of those who wave it to those of other methodologists. Although this essay argues that many of the debates in this century between scientific realists and their opponents are not relevant to economics, it does not attack scientific realism, and it does not urge economists or economic methodologists to reject it. (shrink)