Reorienting economics / Tony Lawson.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Lawson, Tony.

Series:

Economics as social theory

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Economics.

Physical Description:

xxvi, 383 pages ; 25 cm.

Place of Publication:

London : Routledge, 2003.

Summary:

This eagerly anticipated new book from Tony Lawson contends that economics can profit from a more explicit concern with ontology (enquiry into the nature of existence) than has been its custom. By admitting that economics is not exactly a picture of health at the moment, Lawson hopes that we can move away from the bafflingly intransigent belief that economics is at its core reliant upon mathematical modelling. This maths-envy is "the" reason why economics is in a state of such disarray.

Contents:

Part I The current orientation of the discipline and the proposed alternative 1

1 Four theses on the state of modern economics 3

Deductivism 5

Ontology 12

Closed systems 12

Atomism and isolationism 13

A theory of social ontology 16

Fictions 18

Modelling successes 20

The nature of the argument 21

Science 24

The mainstream project and science 25

Implications for the discipline of economics 27

2 An ontological turn in economics 28

Context and philosophical method 28

Contending approaches to economic methodology 29

Critical realism in economics 32

Transcendental analysis and social theory 33

Specific strategies 34

A theory of social ontology 35

Social rules 36

Social positions 38

Internal relationality 39

Transformation and reproduction 39

Reproduction over space and time 40

Emergence and process 43

Human being and subjectivity 44

Habitus 45

Consciousness 46

Agency/structure interaction 49

Forward-looking behaviour 50

Personal identities and meaning 52

Limitations of perspective 53

Implications of the ontological enquiry 53

Errors and dangers 54

Clarification 58

Directionality 59

The context of ontology 61

3 What has realism got to do with it? 63

Realist as a contrast to non-realist 64

Realist: more rather than less 65

Competing programmes 65

The problem with modern mainstream economics 66

A realist alternative 68

The situation in 'economic methodology' 69

Hausman and economics 70

Hausman and critical realism 73

Part II Possibilities for economics 77

4 Explanatory method for social science 79

Conditions of social explanatory endeavour 79

Causal explanation and retroduction 80

The central problem of social explanation 81

A point of departure 84

Contrasts and interest 86

An illustrative example 87

Scientific experiments once more 87

Plant breeding 88

Conditions of possibility of successes 89

Moving towards the social domain 89

Contrast explanation 92

Initiating the explanatory process and interest relativity 93

Directing the explanatory process 94

Discriminating between causal hypotheses 97

Facilitating explanatory research in the social domain 98

A seemingly general explanatory model 102

Demi-regularities 105

Enduring or widespread social processes 106

The feasibility of social explanation 107

5 An evolutionary economics? On borrowing from evolutionary biology 110

The allure of an evolutionary economics 110

The biological and social connection 113

Evolutionary theory and metaphor 114

Advantages of the evolutionary model for social understanding: a preliminary orientation 116

The nature of social material 116

The biological model and mainstream economics 118

Natural selection 119

A biological example: the beaks of Darwin's finches 120

Towards a general evolutionary model 121

The PVRS model 123

The natural selection mechanism 125

Back to social processes 125

The PVRS evolutionary model as a transformational model of social activity 126

Disanalogies between evolutionary biology and evolutionary social science 129

The distinctiveness of the natural selection or biological evolutionary model 130

Evolutionary explanation as a limited epistemological case 131

Economics and metaphor 133

Memes and memetics 134

Tailoring to context 139

6 Economics as a distinct social science? The nature, scope and method of economics 141

A background of competing conceptions of economics 141

A conception of science: previous results 143

Retroduction 145

Different aspects of science 146

Social science 147

The study of social phenomena as a distinct science? 149

The nature and scope of economics?: Towards a synthesis 150

A reassessment of Robbins' essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science 152

Robbins' opposition to the 'materialist' or wealth-based formulations 153

Robbins and scientific generalisations 154

Robbins and the generalisations of economics 156

Robbins' conception and its mainstream interpretation as 'the science of choice or rational action' 158

Economics as a separate or distinct social science? 161

A final argument for separation 162

A conception of economics 164

Part III Heterodox traditions of modern economics 165

7 The nature of post Keynesianism and the problem of delineating the various heterodox traditions 168

The question of coherence 169

The more prominent features of post Keynesianism 169

Towards coherence 170

Keynes' realist orientation 173

Competing theories and policies within post Keynesianism 177

Implications of the sort of coherence found 179

The range of heterodox traditions: commonality and distinctions 180

A suggested basis for distinguishing amongst the heterodox traditions 180

The place of economics in social science 181

The place of the heterodox traditions within economics 182

8 Institutional economics and realist social theorising 184

Evolutionary science and ontology 185

Method, theory of knowledge and judgemental orientation 188

Veblen's evolutionary epistemology 189

Veblen as a thoroughgoing evolutionist 190

The textual evidence for the claim that Veblen is a thoroughgoing evolutionist 192

Veblen's evaluative orientation 195

Critical ontology and determinate negation 196

Veblen's support for the evolutionary method 198

The puzzle of Veblen's reticence about supporting the evolutionary approach 200

Coherence of meaning 201

The legacy of a constructive programme 202

The nature of Veblen's contribution 204

A transformational social ontology 204

Veblen's evolutionary economics 205

The place of the evolutionary method within economics 208

Evolutionary science, institutions and natural selection 210

Habits, institutions and the transformational model 212

Implications for modern old institutionalism 214

Making the most of Veblen 217

9 Feminism, realism and universalism 218

The practice of a priori universalising 218

Feminism and realism 220

An indication that realism/ontology matters 221

Illustration 1 The formalistic modelling of social processes 221

The particularity of formalistic modelling 222

A structured ontology 223

Conditions for closure 224

The social domain 225

Social positions and relations as integral to social reality 226

The importance of internal relations 227

Formalistic modelling as a generalised tool of social science 228

Illustration 2 Positioned interests as essential to epistemic practice 229

An epistemology for an open system 229

Contrastive explanation 231

Situated knowing 233

Contrastive explanation and feminist epistemology 233

Illustration 3 The possibility of human emancipation 237

There is more to reality than the course of events and states of affairs 238

Human nature 239

Needs 240

Grounding the possibility of human emancipation 241

Part IV A historical perspective on economic practice 245

10 An explanation of the mathematising tendency in modern mainstream economics 247

The phenomenon to explain 247

An explanatory first step 248

A further puzzle 250

The nature of the expanded explanatory thesis 251

Evolutionary explanation 251

The natural selection model 252

The PVRS model 254

Modern mainstream economics 256

Basic components of the social evolutionary story 256

Interactors and replicators 257

Origins 259

The drive to mathematise economics in France 260

The culture of mathematics in France 263

The environment: orientations to the mathematisation of social phenomena 264

The Impact of Jean-Baptiste Say 265

The reception of Walras 269

A shifting environment: reinterpreting mathematics 271

The political environment 273

The post-World War II US context 274

Feed-forward and feed-backward mechanisms 277.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

0415253357

0415253365

OCLC:

51001534