Recent Developments in Economic Methodology

Edited by John B. Davis, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Marquette University, US and Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

'Since the publication of The Philosophy and Methodology of Economics, edited by Bruce Caldwell, the range of topics and of approaches has greatly expanded, and not only in predictable directions. We now have extensive debates about the scope of the subject (and whether that is itself a set of appearances defined by our interpretations), the processes of theory invention, the social, psychological and economic influences on these processes, including the assumptions and boundaries that are appropriate and the kinds of causal explanations that are acceptable, the importance of persuasion and the role of narrative. Exploration of these conceptual issues is now increasingly complemented by investigations of the variety and evolution of economists' practice; these are not only intrinsically welcome, but may engage the interest of those who shun "methodology". This collection offers a substantial and accessible guide to what has been happening, and should encourage readers to watch out for, and even participate in, further developments.'

• Contents:Volume I AcknowledgementsIntroduction John B. DavisPART IPOPPER AND LAKATOS1. Bruce J. Caldwell (1991), ‘Clarifying Popper’2. Mark Blaug (1994), ‘Why I am Not a Constructivist: Confessions of an Unrepentant Popperian’3. Lawrence A. Boland (1994), ‘Scientific Thinking Without Scientific Method: Two Views of Popper’4. Roger E. Backhouse (2004), ‘The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes’PART IIRHETORIC, DISCOURSE AND LANGUAGE 5. Vivienne Brown (1993), ‘Decanonizing Discourses: Textual Analysis and the History of Economic Thought’6. Donald N. McCloskey (1994), ‘How to Do a Rhetorical Analysis, and Why’7. Uskali Mäki (1995), ‘Diagnosing McCloskey’8. Maurice Lagueux (1999), ‘Do Metaphors Affect Economic Theory?’PART IIIREALISM 9. Daniel M. Hausman (1998), ‘Problems with Realism in Economics’10. Uskali Mäki (1998), ‘Aspects of Realism about Economics’11. Jochen Runde (1998), ‘Assessing Causal Economic Explanations’12. Tony Lawson (1999), ‘What Has Realism Got to Do With It?’PART IVCONSTRUCTIVISM AND SSK 13. D. Wade Hands (1994), ‘Restabilizing Dynamics: Construction and Constraint in the History of Walrasian Stability Theory’14. Francesco Guala (2001), ‘Building Economic Machines: The FCC Auctions’15. Matthias Klaes (2001), ‘Begriffsgeschichte: Between the Scylla of Conceptual and the Charybdis of Institutional History of Economics’16. A.W. Bob Coats (2003), ‘The Sociology of Economics and Scientific Knowledge, and the History of Economic Thought’PART VECONOMICS OF SCIENCE17. Partha Dasgupta and Paul A. David (1994), ‘Toward A New Economics of Science’18. James R. Wible (1995), ‘The Economic Organization of Science, the Firm and the Marketplace’19. Esther-Mirjam Sent (1999), ‘Economics of Science: Survey and Suggestions’PART VISYMMETRY AND REFLEXIVITY 20. Steve Woolgar (1992), ‘Some Remarks about Positionism: A Reply to Collins and Yearley’21. Esther-Mirjam Sent (1998), ‘Sargent and the Unbearable Lightness of Symmetry’22. Uskali Mäki (1999), ‘Science as a Free Market: A Reflexivity Test in an Economics of Economics’23. John B. Davis and Matthias Klaes (2003), ‘Reflexivity: Curse or Cure?’Name IndexVolume IIAcknowledgementsAn introduction to all three volumes by the editor appears in Volume IPART IFEMINIST ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY 1. Julie A. Nelson (1992), ‘Gender, Metaphor, and the Definition of Economics’2. Diana Strassmann (1993), ‘The Stories of Economics and the Power of the Storyteller’3. Sandra Harding (1995), ‘Can Feminist Thought Make Economics More Objective?’4. Tony Lawson (2003), ‘Ontology and Feminist Theorizing’5. Edith Kuiper (2004), ‘Critical Realism and Feminist Economics: How Well Do They Get Along?’PART IIMARXISM AND POSTMODERNISM 6. William S. Milberg and Bruce A. Pietrykowski (1994), ‘Objectivism, Relativism and the Importance of Rhetoric for Marxist Economics’7. Jack Amariglio and David F. Ruccio (1994), ‘Postmodernism, Marxism, and the Critique of Modern Economic Thought’8. Geert Reuten (2000), ‘The Interconnection of Systematic Dialectics and Historical Materialism’9. Arjo Klamer (2001), ‘Late Modernism and the Loss of Character in Economics’10. S. Charusheela (2004), ‘Postcolonial Thought, Postmodernism, and Economics: Questions of Ontology and Ethics’PART IIIMETHODOLOGICAL PLURALISM AND OPEN SYSTEMS 11. Sheila C. Dow (1990), ‘Beyond Dualism’12. Warren J. Samuels (1997), ‘The Case for Methodological Pluralism’13. Brian J. Loasby (2003), ‘Closed Models and Open Systems’PART IVRATIONALITY14. Stephen Morris (1995), ‘The Common Prior Assumption in Economic Theory’15. Daniel M. Hausman (2000), ‘Revealed Preference, Belief, and Game Theory’16. Robin P. Cubitt, Chris Starmer and Robert Sugden (2001), ‘Discovered Preferences and the Experimental Evidence of Violations of Expected Utility Theory’17. Shaun Hargreaves Heap (2001), ‘Expressive Rationality: Is Self-Worth Just Another Kind of Preference?’PART VTHE AGENT AND PHILOSOPHY OF MIND18. John B. Davis (1995), ‘Personal Identity and Standard Economic Theory’19. Philip Faulkner (2002), ‘The Human Agent in Behavioural Finance: A Searlean Perspective’20. Jack J. Vromen (2003), ‘Cognitive Science Meets Evolutionary Theory: What Implications does Evolutionary Psychology have for Economic Theorising?’PART VIEVOLUTION 21. Geoffrey M. Hodgson (2002), ‘Darwinism in Economics: From Analogy to Ontology’22. Ulrich Witt (2004), ‘On the Proper Interpretation of “Evolution” in Economics and its Implications for Production Theory’23. Jack Vromen (2004), ‘Conjectural Revisionary Economic Ontology: Outline of an Ambitious Research Agenda for Evolutionary Economics’Name IndexVolume IIIAcknowledgementsAn introduction to all three volumes by the editor appears in Volume IPART IMODELS AND ASSUMPTIONS 1. Uskali Mäki (1992), ‘On the Method of Isolation in Economics’2. Nancy Cartwright (1995), ‘Ceteris Paribus Laws and Socio-Economic Machines’3. Marcel Boumans (1999), ‘Built-in Justification’4. Robert Sugden (2000), ‘Credible Worlds: The Status of Theoretical Models in Economics’5. Mary S. Morgan (2001), ‘Models, Stories and the Economic World’PART IIECONOMETRICS 6. Philip Mirowski (1995), ‘Three Ways to Think About Testing in Econometrics’7. Deirdre N. McCloskey and Stephen T. Ziliak (1996), ‘The Standard Error of Regressions’8. Kevin D. Hoover and Stephen J. Perez (2000), ‘Three Attitudes Towards Data Mining’9. Kevin D. Hoover (2002), ‘Econometrics and Reality’PART IIIMICROECONOMICS AND MACROECONOMICS 10. Alan P. Kirman (1992), ‘Whom or What Does the Representative Individual Represent?’11. Kevin D. Hoover (2001), ‘Is Macroeconomics for Real?’12. Alex Rosenberg (1995), ‘The Metaphysics of Microeconomics’13. Roger Backhouse and Andrea Salanti (1999), ‘The Methodology of Macroeconomics’PART IVNORMATIVE THEMES 14. Amartya Sen (1993), ‘Capability and Well-Being’15. Amartya Sen (1995), ‘Rationality and Social Choice’16. Philippe Fontaine (1997), ‘Identification and Economic Behavior: Sympathy and Empathy in Historical Perspective’17. Philippe Mongin (2001), ‘The Impartial Observer Theorem of Social Ethics’PART VFORMALISM IN ECONOMICS 18. E. Roy Weintraub (1998), ‘Controversy: Axiomatisches Mißverständnis’19. Roger E. Backhouse (1998), ‘If Mathematics is Informal, Then Perhaps We Should Accept That Economics Must Be Informal Too’20. D. Wade Hands (2003), ‘Did Milton Friedman’s Methodology License The Formalist Revolution?’PART VIMETHODOLOGY OUT OF HISTORY: THE CASE OF THE JEVONS 21. Harro Maas (2001), ‘An Instrument Can Make a Science: Jevons’s Balancing Acts in Economics’22. Julian Reiss (2001), ‘Natural Economic Quantities and their Measurement’PART VIITHE STATE OF ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY 23. E. Roy Weintraub (1989), ‘Methodology Doesn’t Matter, But the History of Thought Might’24. Uskali Mäki (1994), ‘Methodology Might Matter, but Weintraub’s Meta-Methodology Shouldn’t’25. D. Wade Hands (2001), ‘Economic Methodolgy is Dead – Long Live Economic Methodology: Thirteen Theses on the New Economic Methodology’Name Index