Format:
1 online resource (405 pages)
Edition:
1st ed.
ISBN:
9780415253352
,
9781134525959
Series Statement:
Economics As Social Theory Series
Content:
In this book, Tony Lawson advocates a relignment of economics with social reality - placing ontology at the heart of a discipline integrated within the wider human and social sciences
Note:
Front Cover -- Reorienting Economics -- Copyright Page -- Contents -- Preface and acknowledgements -- Part I: The current orientation of the discipline and the proposed alternative -- 1. Four theses on the state of modern economics -- Thesis 1 -- Deductivism -- Thesis 2 -- Thesis 3 -- Ontology -- Closed systems -- Atomism and isolationism -- A theory of social ontology -- Fictions -- Modelling successes -- The nature of the argument -- Thesis 4 -- Science -- The mainstream project and science -- Implications for the discipline of economics -- 2. An ontological turn in economics -- Context and philosophical method -- Contending approaches to economic methodology -- Critical realism in economics -- Transcendental analysis and social theory -- Specific strategies -- A theory of social ontology -- Social rules -- Social positions -- Internal relationality -- Transformation and reproduction -- Reproduction over space and time -- Emergence and process -- Human being and subjectivity -- Habitus -- Consciousness -- Agency/structure interaction -- Forward-looking behaviour -- Personal identities and meaning -- Limitations of perspective -- Implications of the ontological enquiry -- Errors and dangers -- Clarification -- Directionality -- The context of ontology -- 3. What has realism got to do with it? -- Realist as a contrast to non-realist -- Realist: more rather than less -- Competing programmes -- The problem with modern mainstream economics -- A realist alternative -- The situation in 'economic methodology' -- Hausman and economics -- Hausman and critical realism -- Concluding remarks -- Part II: Possibilities for economics -- 4. Explanatory method for social science -- Conditions of social explanatory endeavour -- Causal explanation and retroduction -- The central problem of social explanation -- A point of departure -- Contrasts and interest
,
A reassessment of Robbins' essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science -- Robbins' opposition to the 'materialist' or wealth-based formulations -- Robbins and scientific generalisations -- Robbins and the generalisations of economics -- Robbins' conception and its mainstream interpretation as 'the scienceof choice or rational action' -- Economics as a separate or distinct social science? -- A final argument for separation -- A conception of economics -- Part III: Heterodox traditions of modern economics -- 7. The nature of post keynesianism and the problem of delineating the various heterodox traditions -- The question of coherence -- The more prominent features of post Keynesianism -- Towards coherence -- Keynes' realist orientation -- Competing theories and policies within post Keynesianism -- Implications of the sort of coherence found -- The range of heterodox traditions: commonality and distinctions -- A suggested basis for distinguishing amongst the heterodox traditions -- The place of economics in social science -- The place of the heterodox traditions within economics -- 8. Institutional economics and realist social theorising -- Evolutionary science and ontology -- Method, theory of knowledge and judgemental orientation -- Veblen's evolutionary epistemology -- Veblen as a thoroughgoing evolutionist -- The textual evidence for the claim that Veblen is a thoroughgoingevolutionist -- Veblen's evaluative orientation -- Critical ontology and determinate negation -- Veblen's support for the evolutionary method -- The puzzle of Veblen's reticence about supportingthe evolutionary approach -- Coherence of meaning -- The legacy of a constructive programme -- The nature of Veblen's contribution -- A transformational social ontology -- Veblen's evolutionary economics -- The place of the evolutionary method within economics
,
An illustrative example -- Scientific experiments once more -- Plant breeding -- Conditions of possibility of successes -- Moving towards the social domain -- Contrast explanation -- Initiating the explanatory process and interest relativity -- Directing the explanatory process -- Discriminating between causal hypotheses -- Facilitating explanatory research in the social domain -- A seemingly general explanatory model -- Demi-regularities -- Enduring or widespread social processes -- The feasibility of social explanation -- 5. An evolutionary economics? On borrowing fromevolutionary biology -- The allure of an evolutionary economics -- The biological and social connection -- Evolutionary theory and metaphor -- Advantages of the evolutionary model for social understanding:a preliminary orientation -- The nature of social material -- The biological model and mainstream economics -- Natural selection -- A biological example: the beaks of Darwin's finches -- Towards a general evolutionary model -- The PVRS model -- The natural selection mechanism -- Back to social processes -- The PVRS evolutionary model as a transformational model ofsocial activity -- Disanalogies between evolutionary biology and evolutionarysocial science -- The distinctiveness of the natural selection or biologicalevolutionary model -- Evolutionary explanation as a limited epistemological case -- Economics and metaphor -- Memes and memetics -- Tailoring to context -- 6. Economics as a distinct social science? The nature,scope and method of economics -- A background of competing conceptions of economics -- A conception of science: previous results -- Retroduction -- Different aspects of science -- Social science -- The study of social phenomena as a distinct science? -- The nature and scope of economics?: Towards a synthesis
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Evolutionary science, institutions and natural selection -- Habits, institutions and the transformational model -- Implications for modern old institutionalism -- Making the most of Veblen -- 9. Feminism, realism and universalism -- The practice of a priori universalising -- Feminism and realism -- An indication that realism/ontology matters -- Illustration 1: the formalistic modelling of social processes -- The particularity of formalistic modelling -- A structured ontology -- Conditions for closure -- The social domain -- Social positions and relations as integral to social reality -- The importance of internal relations -- Formalistic modelling as a generalised tool of social science -- Illustration 2: positioned interests as essential to epistemic practice -- An epistemology for an open system -- Contrastive explanation -- Situated knowing -- Contrastive explanation and feminist epistemology -- Illustration 3: the possibility of human emancipation -- There is more to reality than the course of events and states of affairs -- Human nature -- Needs -- Grounding the possibility of human emancipation -- Final comments -- Part IV: A historical perspective on economic practice -- 10. An explanation of the mathematising tendency in modern economics -- The phenomenon to explain -- An explanatory first step -- A further puzzle -- The nature of the expanded explanatory thesis -- Evolutionary explanation -- The natural selection model -- The PVRS model -- Modern mainstream economics -- Basic components of the social evolutionary story -- Interactors and replicators -- Origins -- The drive to mathematise economics in France -- The culture of mathematics in France -- The environment: orientations to the mathematisation of socialphenomena -- The Impact of Jean-Baptiste Say -- The reception of Walras -- A shifting environment: reinterpreting mathematics
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The political environment -- The post-World War II US context -- Feed-forward and feed-backward mechanisms -- Overview and further questions -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Name Index -- Subject Index
Additional Edition:
Print version Lawson, Tony Reorienting Economics Oxford : Taylor & Francis Group,c2003 ISBN 9780415253352
Language:
English
Keywords:
Electronic books
URL:
FULL
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