Critical Realism in Economics: Development and Debate

Description

Critical Realism, with its focus on the causal structures underlying observable phenomena, has been one of the most significant developments in the philosophy of social science in recent years. This volume extends its insights into the fields of economic philosophy methodology and theory in such a way as to open up new forms of investigation in economics and to transform the nature of economic reasoning. It is argued that the specific value of this approach is that it encourages attention to the capacities, structures and powers that explain observed even regularities in economic life and thus provides a more profound understanding of the subject matter of economics. In this way, complacent forms of theoretical practices in economics based on statistical explanation are overturned and new avenues of empirical research opened out. Critical Realism in Economics is more than just eloquent advocacy for a new way of seeing in economic methodology, including also papers from authors critical of this approach, as well as from those that are concerned to elucidate its full implications for contemporary economics. What emerges then from this combination of exposition and critical interchange is a volume of reflection and learning from the pens of some of the leading authorities in the field of economic philosophy. Critical Realism will thus make fascinating reading for both students and exponents of economic philosophy, methodology and theory.

..."there is much in this collection that is worthwhile, and institutionalists in particular will benefit from reading it."-"Journal of Economic Issues