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9 - Conclusion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 January 2010

D. Wade Hands
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound, Washington
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Summary

To think that people trained in logic and philosophy should actually contribute to the solution of major theoretical problems in the sciences sounds presumptuous. Mainly it was naive. The enterprise assumes, quite mistakenly, that one can extract the theories of a science from their disciplinary culture and analyze them in the abstract. Later analytic philosophers of science were thus victims of an assumption they adopted uncritically from their logical empiricist elders. The typical result has been the creation of relatively isolated subdisciplines populated by philosophers and a few scientific sympathizers. The sciences in question have continued to develop following their own dynamics.

[Giere 1999, p. 16]

The previous eight chapters have covered a vast amount of ground and it is now time to take stock and reflect more generally on the overall project. Although the previous chapters have surveyed science theory and economic methodology, and systematically examined various relationships between the two, the title was not “Surveying Methodology and the Literature Relevant to It.” The title is Reflection without Rules, and that title was designed to convey a two-pronged assertion about the recent methodological literature: (1) that simple rules-based economic methodology has quietly and unceremoniously passed from the scene, and (2) that its disappearance need not be, and has not been, the death knell for philosophical and science-theoretical reflection on, and involvement with, the discipline of economics. In fact, the passage has actually facilitated an extremely fertile harvest of new and interesting reflections on a wide array of broadly methodological topics.

Type
Chapter
Information
Reflection without Rules
Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory
, pp. 393 - 407
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2001

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  • Conclusion
  • D. Wade Hands, University of Puget Sound, Washington
  • Book: Reflection without Rules
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612602.010
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  • Conclusion
  • D. Wade Hands, University of Puget Sound, Washington
  • Book: Reflection without Rules
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612602.010
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Conclusion
  • D. Wade Hands, University of Puget Sound, Washington
  • Book: Reflection without Rules
  • Online publication: 08 January 2010
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511612602.010
Available formats
×