Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.
To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to upgrade your browser.
2012
Hands, Douglas Wade: Orthodox and heterodox economics in recent economic methodology. Mireles Flores, Luis: Causality, pluralism, and economic policy making. Scarano, Eduardo R.: Economics as a separate science: A critical review. IVAROLA, LEONARDO y MARQUES, GUSTAVO: Expectations-based mechanisms - An interventionist account. Crespo, Ricardo F.: A teleological causal mechanism for economics: Socio-economic machines. Gomez, Ricardo J.: On economics and the impossibility of its reduction to physics. Weisman, Diego y Thefs, German: The ways of scientific representation: Models, maps and reality. The ways of scientific representation: Models, maps and reality. Borella, Agustina: A critical look at critical realism. Lazzarini, Andres: Mill, Hausman and the traditional method in neoclassical economics.
Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2021
Opponents of mainstream economics have not yet called attention to the lack of in-depth examination of the general scientific conception of modern economics. However, economic science cannot consistently fulfil the epistemological and ontological requirements of the scientific standards underlying this conception. What can be scientifically recognized as true cannot be answered, neither through the actual ontological structure of the object of observation nor through a methodological demarcation. These limitations necessarily lead to the claim for both a pragmatic and a radical methodological pluralism.
The objective of this paper is to account for an apparent paradox that has in recent years characterized the discipline of Economics, particularly the domain of Macroeconomics: on the one hand, a very strong emphasis on empirical observation and empirical testing of hypotheses as the foundations of scientific method and the criteria for knowledge validation; and a very extensive use of Smith’s notion of “Invisible Hand’ and the manner in which it “works its magic”, on the other. The paper places the construction of Smith by contemporary economists in the context of the historical development of economic thought, and particularly of the transformation of Political Economy into “pure” Economics, emptied of any reference to non-economic issues, and constructed along the lines of classical (Newtonian) physics. It is argued that such widespread use of the term “Invisible Hand” can be explained by the inability of the discipline, constrained by its definition of what it means to be scientific, to adequately theorize aggregate or structural processes in other than methodologically individualist and reductionist terms, denying any legitimate ontological status to non observable phenomena. It is suggested that the “Invisible Hand’ of Smith performs for Macroeconomics the same role as the one played by the deus ex machine of imagined “auctioneer” of Walras for Microeconomics : it is an attempt to back up the claim that free markets will necessarily result in a market-clearing and Pareto-optimal allocation of resources, which the discipline, dealing with social and not natural phenomena, is obviously unable to prove in any “scientific” way.
2014
Contemporary mainstream economics is currently best characterised by an uncritical acceptance of mathematico-deductivist methods, in an attempt to mimic the methods of natural sciences like physics, while neglecting epistemic values like empirical adequacy, simplicity, coherence with other knowledge, or internal consistency. Here I will argue that the methodology that characterises mainstream economics is inappropriate for the analysis of social reality, since it ignores the nature of the latter. Heterodox traditions like Marxian economics, Austrian Economics, (old) Institutionalism, and Post Keynesianism, on the other hand, provide a more realist conception of social reality, by taking into account the epistemic capabilities of the human agent, and provide more promising routes to the study of social reality.
2016
My purpose is to appraise the recent critique of theoretical economics by applying the methodological perspective. Therefore, I start by identifying main lines of criticism raised against theoretical economics in the aftermath of the post-2008 global economic crisis: namely, these voices criticising economics for its unrealistic models, excessive mathematization, and overconfidence in its theoretical claims. First, I show that these issues are interconnected and should be jointly analysed. Next, I investigate these lines of critique from the perspective provided by the latest achievements in the philosophy of economics (e.g., studies on the epistemic role of economic models). Taking this perspective reinforces some allegations against economics (e.g., these voices accusing economists for treating economic laws as universal laws of nature) and makes some criticisms more nuanced (e.g., the issue of unrealistic assumptions). Finally, I conclude by stating that such a methodological perspective is necessary in critically apprising the recent critique of economics.
Panoeconomicus, 2010
As a social science, economics cannot be reduced to simply an a priori science or an ideology. In addition economics cannot be solely an empirical or a historical science. Economics is a research field which studies only one dimension of human behavior, with the four fields of mathematics, econometrics, ethics and history intersecting one another. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the two parts of the proposition above, in connection with the controversies surrounding the method and the scope of economics: economics as an applied mathematics and economics as a predictive/empirical science. Key words: Invisible hand, Scope and method in economics, Economics as an applied mathematics, Economics as an empirical science, Economics as ideology. JEL: B41, B23.
Atlantic Economic Journal, 2022
Journal of Economic Methodology, 2011
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2018
This article has adopted an open discourse in addressing pertinent concerns about the scientific existence of economics as a discipline. In doing so, some (critical) Filosofia arguments have been provided in ensuring that a well balanced approach is taken on the subject. Obviously, the approach of Popperian falsification used by economic science to address scientific justification through its varied scientific platform of technology applications like EVIEWS, STATA, MatLab and many more, have been applauded. Albeit such advances, the views of modern and postmodern critics have also come out saliently in a bid to ensuring open discourses are brought to the fore as a way of adding scientific value to the subject matter. In concluding, it was acknowledged that more is needed in ensuring that economic science as practiced by economists takes an open approach to critical discourse(s), reflecting reality about its pursed scientific ventures, given the persistence of economic volatility manifested across the global community.
2013
One of the most refreshing philosophical perspectives introduced to economics and to social sciences in general over the last twenty years or so is this of Critical Realism (CR). It presents a new way of seeing socioeconomic reality, and, on these grounds, it advances discussion in philosophy and methodology, providing guidelines of how modes of reasoning and research might be fashioned for analysis within all sciences, social and natural. The current paper aims at presenting the fundamentals of the philosophy of CR. In particular, it delineates the key ontological and epistemological premises of CR together with an outline of the methodological implications for economics.
The notion of both 'ideology' and 'science' are numerous, contentious and sometimes contradictory depending on different authors' cognitive vantage points with its own sociohistoric genesis. This paper seeks to critically evaluate Joseph Schumpeter's view on relationship between 'ideology' and 'science' and its mutual interdependence in generating knowledge in social sciences like economics. In economics his analysis is much more broad and contextual than his other contemporaries. His view of 'Ideology' as "pre-analytic vision about real world economic events conditioned by social-historic positioning of social agent/theorist" and 'science' as "mere box of analytic tools continually evolving and getting perfected" and former being continuously subjected to critical assessment of later, is evaluated from the soundness of its epistemological and ontological standpoint. Borrowing from different schools of philosophy (Marxist, Critical Realist, and Philosophy of Science), Schumpeter's construction on 'ideology' and 'science' is critically evaluated.
World Develop, 1986
This article focuses on a broad distinction within economic thinking and the methodological misconceptions that are implied by it. We find today, on the one hand, mainstream economics, which uses both the method of abstract rationality typical of the logical-formal sciences and the method of the natural sciences—two methodologies that, as we shall prove, are inappropriate for the study of social reality. On the other hand we find the opponents of mainstream economics, primarily heterodox economics, who emphasize methodological pluralism and lend, in the extreme, their support to the relativist view that all views may be right in their own way. Such an unconstrained pluralist attitude to method obstructs interaction and reciprocal understanding among students, the scientific appreciation of theoretical contributions and the same fecundating role of pluralism. We shall see that methodological diffuseness is the primary factor explaining the failure of attacks against mainstream economics and we shall look for a solution to this embarrassing impotence by searching for general methodological procedure and rules fully appropriate to the scientific study of social reality.
Loading Preview
Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.