Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-fmk2r Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-13T09:56:12.279Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ontic Structural Realism and Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Don Ross
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Ontic structural realism (OSR) is crucially motivated by empirical discoveries of fundamental physics. To this extent its potential to furnish a general metaphysics for science may appear limited. However, OSR also provides a good account of the progress that has been achieved over the decades in a formalized special science, economics. Furthermore, this has a basis in the ontology presupposed by economic theory, and is not just an artifact of formalization.

Type
Structural Realism and the Special Sciences
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 75 , Issue 5: Proceedings of the 2006 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers. Edited by Cristina Bicchieri and Jason Alexander , December 2008 , pp. 732 - 743
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arrow, Kenneth (1965), Aspects of the Theory of Risk Bearing. Helsinki: Academic Book Store.Google Scholar
Bowles, Samuel, Edwards, Robert, and Roosevelt, Frank (2005), Understanding Capitalism. 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davis, John (2003), The Theory of the Individual in Economics. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Debreu, Gerard (1959), Theory of Value. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
D’Espagnat, Bernard (2006), On Physics and Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
French, Stephen, and Krause, Décio (2006), Identity in Physics: A Historical, Philosophical and Formal Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
French, Stephen, and Ladyman, James (2003), “Remodelling Structural Realism: Quantum Physics and the Metaphysics of Structure”, Remodelling Structural Realism: Quantum Physics and the Metaphysics of Structure 136:31–56.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton (1953), Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gintis, Herbert (2000), Game Theory Evolving. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Heilbroner, Robert, and Milberg, William (1995), The Crisis of Vision in Modern Economic Thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hicks, John, and Allen, Robert (1934), “A Reconsideration of the Theory of Value”, A Reconsideration of the Theory of Value 1:52–76, 196–219.Google Scholar
Hollis, Martin, and Nell, Edward (1975), Rational Economic Man: A Philosophical Critique of Neo-classical Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kincaid, Harold (1997), Individualism and the Unity of Science. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James (1998), “What Is Structural Realism?”, What Is Structural Realism? 29:409–424.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James (2002), “Science, Metaphysics and Structural Realism”, Science, Metaphysics and Structural Realism 67:57–76.Google Scholar
Ladyman, James, and Ross, Don (2007), Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalised. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lawson, Tony (1997), Economics and Reality. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mäki, Uskali (1992), “Friedman and Realism”, in Samuels, Warren and Biddle, J. (eds.), Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 4. London: JAI, 171–195.Google Scholar
Mankiw, Nicholas (2006), “The Economist as Scientist and Engineer”, NBER Working Paper No. 12349, http://www.nber.org/papers/w12349.Google Scholar
Ormerod, Paul (1994), The Death of Economics. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Alex (1992), Economics: Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Alex (2009), “If Economics Is a Science, What Kind of Science Is It?”, in Kincaid, Harold and Ross, Don (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economic Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Ross, Don (2005), Economic Theory and Cognitive Science: Microexplanation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Ross, Don (2006), “The Economic and Evolutionary Basis of Selves”, The Economic and Evolutionary Basis of Selves 7:246–258.Google Scholar
Ross, Don (2009), “Economic Theory, Anti-economics, and Political Ideology”, in Mäki, Uskali (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Science: Economics. Dordrecht: Kluwer, forthcoming.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuelson, Paul (1947), Foundations of Economic Analysis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Saunders, Simon (2003), “Structural Realism, Again”, Structural Realism, Again 136:127–133.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1977), “Rational Fools”, Rational Fools 6:317–344.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1987), On Ethics and Economics. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya (1999), Development as Freedom. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Stigum, Bernt (1990), Toward a Formal Science of Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar