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4429Philosophy and EconomicsIn S. N. Durlauf & L. E. Blume (eds.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2nd edition, Palgrave. pp. 410-420. 2008.
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1243Mark Blaug on the Normativity of Welfare EconomicsErasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 6 (3): 1-25. 2013.Abstract: This paper examines Mark Blaug's position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics: in general, and specifically with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. The paper also clarifies some of the confusions that emerged within the context of this debate, and closes by providing some additional arguments supporting Blaug's position that he himself did not provide.
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905More light and less heat Mirowski on economics and the energy metaphorPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 22 (1): 97-111. 1992.Review Article on Mirowski's More Heat Than Light (1989)
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888Caveat emptor: Economics and contemporary philosophy of sciencePhilosophy of Science 64 (4): 116. 1997.The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I cons…Read more
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886The structuralist view of economic theories: A review essay: The case of general equilibrium in particularEconomics and Philosophy 1 (2): 303-. 1985.
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810Conjectures and Reputations:The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge and the History of Economic ThoughtHistory of Political Economy 29 695-739. 1997.
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74610 Constructivism: the social construction of scientific knowledgeIn John Bryan Davis & Alain Marciano (eds.), The Elgar Companion to Economics and Philosophy, Edward Elgar. pp. 197. 2004.
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669Realism, Commonsensibles, and Economics:The Case of Contemporary Revealed Preference TheoryIn Aki Lehtinen, Jaakko Kuorikoski & Petri Ylikoski (eds.), Economics for Real: Uskali Mäki and the Place of Truth in Economics, Routledge. pp. 156-178. 2012.This paper challenges Mäki's argument about commonsensibles by offering a case study from contemporary microeconomics – contemporary revealed preference theory (hereafter CRPT) – where terms like "preference," "utility," and to some extent "choice," are radical departures from the common sense meanings of these terms. Although the argument challenges the claim that economics is inhabited solely by commonsensibles, it is not inconsistent with such folk notions being common in economic theory.
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568Popper, the Rationality Principle and Economic ExplanationIn G. K. Shaw (ed.), Economics, Culture, and Education: Essays in Honor of Mark Blaug, Edward Elgar. pp. 108-119. 1991.
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5432006 HES Presidential Address: A Tale of Two Mainstreams: Economics and Philosophy of Natural Science in the mid-Twentieth CenturyJournal of the History of Economic Thought 29 1-13. 2007.Abstract: The paper argues that mainstream economics and mainstream philosophy of natural science had much in common during the period 1945-1965. It examines seven common features of the two fields and suggests a number of historical developments that might help explain these similarities. The historical developments include: the Vienna Circle connection, the Samuelson-Harvard-Foundations connection, and the Cold War operations research connection.
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478William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics, by Harro Maas. Cambridge University Press, 2005, xxii+330 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 23 (2): 252-256. 2007.
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468Review Symposium : Douglas W. Hands G. C. Archibald Joseph Agassi On S. J. Latsis, ed. Method and Appraisal in Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976. Pp. viii + 218. $17.50 The Methodology of Economic Research Programmes (review)Philosophy of the Social Sciences 9 (3): 293-303. 1979.
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437The logical reconstruction of pure exchange economics: Another alternativeTheory and Decision 19 (3): 259-278. 1985.
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417Priority Fights in Economic Science: Paradox and ResolutionPerspectives on Science 14 (2): 215-231. 2006.: Eponymic honor is a common form of professional recognition in economics, as it is in other sciences. There also seems to be convincing evidence that individuals exposed to economic theory behave less cooperatively and more self-interestedly than individuals who have not been exposed to such economic ideas. Taken together these two facts would seem to suggest that the history of economic thought would be a history of rather contentious priority fights. If economists generally behave in self-in…Read more
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410The Problem of Excess Content: Economics, Novelty and a Long Popperian TaleIn Mark Blaug & Neil de Marchi (eds.), Appraising Economic Theories: Studies in the Methodology of Research Programs, Edward Elgar. pp. 58-75. 1991.The paper traces the sequence of events which brought Popperian philosophy (including Lakatos) to its position on the issues of excess content, novelty and scientific progress. The general approach is to analyze Popper's and Lakatos's positions on these issues as an appropriate response to a particular philosophical problem situation in which they found themselves. The paper closes with a discussion of how these issues relate to economics and economic methodology.
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344Introspection, Revealed Preference and Neoclassical Economics: A Critical Response to Don Ross on the Robbins-Samuelson Argument PatternJournal of the History of Economic Thought 30 1-26. 2008.Abstract: Don Ross’ Economic Theory and Cognitive Science (2005) provides an elaborate philosophical defense of neoclassical economics. He argues that the central features of neoclassical theory are associated with what he calls the Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern and that it can be reconciled with recent developments in experimental and behavioral economics, as well as contemporary cognitive science. This paper argues that Ross’ Robbins-Samuelson argument pattern is not in the work of either…Read more
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320The Sociology of Scientific Knowlege and Economics: Some Thoughts on the PossibilitiesIn Roger Backhouse (ed.), New Perspectives in Economic Methodology, Routledge. pp. 75-106. 1994.
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300Metaphysics, Economics and Progress: A Comment on Glass and JohnsonBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43 (2): 241-244. 1992.
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157Karl Popper and economic methodology: a new lookEconomics and Philosophy 1 (1): 83-. 1985.Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsif…Read more
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121Foundations of Contemporary Revealed Preference TheoryErkenntnis 78 (5): 1081-1108. 2013.This paper examines methodological issues raised by revealed preference theory in economics: particularly contemporary revealed preference theory. The paper has three goals. First, to make the case that revealed preference theory is a broad research program in choice theory—not a single theory—and understanding this diversity is essential to any methodological analysis of the program. Second, to explore some of the existing criticisms of revealed preference theory in a way that emphasizes how th…Read more
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118Review of: Human Agency and Language by Charles TaylorEconomics and Philosophy 3 (1): 172-175. 1987.
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70What economics is not: An economist's response to RosenbergPhilosophy of Science 51 (3): 495-503. 1984.Alexander Rosenberg (1983) has argued, contrary to his previous work in the philosophy of economics, that economics is not science, and it is merely mathematics. The following paper argues that Rosenberg fails to demonstrate either of these two claims. The questions of the predictive weakness of modern economics and the cognitive standing of abstract economic theory are discussed in detail
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70Reconsidering the received view of the 'Received View': Kant, Kuhn, and the demise of positivist philosophy of scienceSocial Epistemology 17 (2-3): 169-173. 2003.This Article does not have an abstract
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66Social Epistemology Meets the Invisible Hand: Kitcher on the Advancement of ScienceDialogue 34 (3): 605-. 1995.
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51Derivational robustness, credible substitute systems and mathematical economic models: the case of stability analysis in Walrasian general equilibrium theoryEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (1): 31-53. 2016.This paper supports the literature which argues that derivational robustness can have epistemic import in highly idealized economic models. The defense is based on a particular example from mathematical economic theory, the dynamic Walrasian general equilibrium model. It is argued that derivational robustness first increased and later decreased the credibility of the Walrasian model. The example demonstrates that derivational robustness correctly describes the practices of a particular group of …Read more
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48Normative ecological rationality: normative rationality in the fast-and-frugal-heuristics research programJournal of Economic Methodology 21 (4): 396-410. 2014.The purpose of this paper is to examine the normative interpretation of the fast-and-frugal research program and in particular to contrast it with the normative reading of rational choice theory and behavioral economics. The ecological rationality of fast-and-frugal heuristics is admittedly a form of normative naturalism – it derives what agents “ought” to do from that which “is” ecologically rational – and the paper will examine how this differs from the normative rationality associated with ra…Read more
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48Blurred boundaries: Recent changes in the relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural scienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 25 (5): 751-772. 1994.
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45Introduction: Methodology, systemic risk, and the economics professionJournal of Economic Methodology 20 (1). 2013.(2013). Introduction: Methodology, systemic risk, and the economics profession. Journal of Economic Methodology: Vol. 20, Methodology, Systemic Risk, and the Economics Profession, pp. 1-5. doi: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.774842
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40Economics and the Philosophy of Science, Deborah A. Redman. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991, vii + 252 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 8 (2): 298-303. 1992.
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Philosophy of Social Science |
20th Century Philosophy |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Social Science |
General Philosophy of Science |