Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Methodological Tradition in Economics
- 3 The Breakdown of the Received View within the Philosophy of Science
- 4 The Naturalistic Turn
- 5 The Sociological Turn
- 6 Pragmatism, Discourse, and Situatedness
- 7 Recent Developments in Economic Methodology
- 8 The Economic Turn
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Web Sites
- Index
2 - The Methodological Tradition in Economics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 The Methodological Tradition in Economics
- 3 The Breakdown of the Received View within the Philosophy of Science
- 4 The Naturalistic Turn
- 5 The Sociological Turn
- 6 Pragmatism, Discourse, and Situatedness
- 7 Recent Developments in Economic Methodology
- 8 The Economic Turn
- 9 Conclusion
- References
- Web Sites
- Index
Summary
In the definition which we have attempted to frame of the science of Political Economy, we have characterized it as essentially an abstract science, and its method as the method a priori.
[Mill 1874, p. 143]I have been increasingly moved to wonder whether my job is a job or a racket, whether economists, and particularly economic theorists, may not be in the position that Cicero … ascribed to the augurs of Rome – that they should cover their faces or burst into laughter when they met on the street.
[Knight 1956, p. 252]By the time I had come to work on my doctoral dissertation, I had somehow absorbed Popperian falsificationism without ever reading Popper. Some of it I acquired from Milton Friedman's classic essay “The Methodology of Positive Economics” (1953), which, without mentioning Popper, presents a sort of vulgar, Mickey Mouse Popperianism.
[Blaug 1994a, p. 22]This chapter will survey the field of economic methodology as it existed in the Anglo-American literature prior to the revival of the last few decades. Although I realize that any attempt to “survey” such a wide-ranging and diverse literature in such a brief amount of space will undoubtedly do an injustice to many authors and many ideas, I hope the injustices are mitigated by the contents of the remaining chapters. The various positions that are introduced here will resurface again and again in later chapters: sometimes as fodder for opposing views, sometimes as reinterpretations, and sometimes as exemplars of particular methodological positions.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Reflection without RulesEconomic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory, pp. 13 - 69Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001