-
7815Filosofia y metodologia an la economiaIn Juan José Jardón Urrieta (ed.), Temas de Teoria Economica y so Metodo, Universidade De Santiago De Compostela. 2008.Este documento analiza las siguientes cuestiones: 1) La metodología de la economía y su actual institucionalización. 2) La definición de Economía. 3) Las perspectivas de los economistas acerca de la Economía, sus métodos y justificación. 4) Comprobación y progreso: Popper y Lakatos.5) Los modelos y sus supuestos. 6) Persuasión retórica y verdad. 7) La Economía como un recurso para la Filosofía de la Ciencia. 8) Expansionismo explicativo y relaciones interdisciplinares.
-
1065It is argued that rather than a well defined F-Twist, Milton Friedman’s “Methodology of positive economics” offers an F-Mix: a pool of ambiguous and inconsistent ingredients that can be used for putting together a number of different methodological positions. This concerns issues such as the very concept of being unrealistic, the goal of predictive tests, the as-if formulation of theories, explanatory unification, social construction, and more. Both friends and foes of Friedman’s essay have igno…Read more
-
850Universals and the methodenstreit: a re-examination of Carl Menger's conception of economics as an exact scienceStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 28 (3): 475-495. 1997.In the latter half of the 19th century, economic thought in the Germanspeaking world was dominated, both intellectually and academically, by the so-called historical school, from Wilhelm Roscher to Gustav Schmoller and others. In 1871, the Austrian Carl Menger published his Grun&tze der Volkswirtschaftslehre (Menger, 1976 (1871)), customarily referred to as one of the three simultaneous discoveries of marginalist economics-the other two marginalist ‘revolutionaries’ being Jevons in England and W…Read more
-
680Scientific realism and ontologyIn Steven N. Durlauf & Lawrence E. Blume (eds.), The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics : volume 7 : real balances - stochastic volatility models, Palgrave-macmillan. 2008.Economists customarily talk about the ‘realism’ of economic models and of their assumptions and make descriptive and prescriptive judgements about them: this model has more realism in it than that, the realism of assumptions does not matter, and so on. This is not the way philosophers mostly use the term ‘realism’ thus there is a major terminological discontinuity between the two disciplines. The following remarks organise and critically elaborate some of the philosophical usages of the term and…Read more
-
661Introduction: Interdisciplinary model exchangesStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 48 52-59. 2014.The five studies of this special section investigate the role of models and similar representational tools in interdisciplinarity. These studies were all written by philosophers of science, who focused on interdisciplinary episodes between disciplines and sub-disciplines ranging from physics, chemistry and biology to the computational sciences, sociology and economics. The reasons we present these divergent studies in a collective form are three. First, we want to establish model-exchange as a k…Read more
-
609Realisms and their opponentsIn N. J. Smelser & B. Baltes (eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, . pp. 19--12815. 2001.In everyday usage, ‘realism’ is often used as a name for a practically or epistemically low-ambition attitude, while ‘idealism’ is often taken to denote a highambition—if not utopian—attitude. In philosophcal usage, mostly, it is the other way around: those who are called realists tend to claim more than their opponents—they are the philosophical optimists. Within philosophy itself, ‘realism’ adopts a variety of interrelated and contested meanings. It is used as the name for doctrines about issu…Read more
-
554Science as a Free Market: A Reflexivity Test in an Economics of EconomicsPerspectives on Science 7 (4): 486-509. 1999.One prominent aspect of recent developments in science studies has been the increasing employment of economic concepts and models in the depiction of science, including the notion of a free market for scientific ideas. This gives rise to the issue of the adequacy of the conceptual resources of economics for this purpose. This paper suggests an adequacy test by putting a version of free market economics to a self-referential scrutiny. The outcome is that either free market economics is self-defea…Read more
-
532Is geographical economics imperializing economic geography?Journal of Economic Geography 11 (4): 645-665. 2011.Geographical economics (also known as the ‘new economic geography’) is an approach developed within economics dealing with space and geography, issues previously neglected by the mainstream of the discipline. Some practitioners in neighbouring fields traditionally concerned with spatial issues (descriptively) characterized it as—and (normatively) blamed it for—intellectual imperialism. We provide a nuanced analysis of the alleged imperialism of geographical economics and investigate whether the …Read more
-
428Realism from the 'lands of Kaleva': an interview with Uskali MäkiErasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 1 (1): 124. 2008.USKALI MÄKI (Helsinki, 1951) is a philosopher of science and a social scientist, and one of the forerunners of the strong wave of research on the philosophy and methodology of economics that has been expanding during the last three decades. His research interests and academic contributions cover many topics in the philosophy of economics, such as realism and realisticness, idealisation, scientific modelling, causation, explanation, rhetoric, the sociology and economics of economics, and the foun…Read more
-
363Models and truthIn M. Rédei M. Dorato M. Suàrez (ed.), Epsa Epistemology and Methodology of Science, Springer. pp. 177--187. 2010.In what follows, I will give examples of the sorts of step that can be taken towards spelling out the intuition that, after all, good models might be true. Along the way, I provide an outline of my account of models as ontologically and pragmatically constrained representations. And I emphasize the importance of examining models as functionally composed systems in which different components play different roles and only some components serve as relevant truth bearers. This disputes the standard …Read more
-
336MISSing the World. Models as Isolations and Credible Surrogate SystemsErkenntnis 70 (1): 29-43. 2009.This article shows how the MISS account of models—as isolations and surrogate systems—accommodates and elaborates Sugden’s account of models as credible worlds and Hausman’s account of models as explorations. Theoretical models typically isolate by means of idealization, and they are representatives of some target system, which prompts issues of resemblance between the two to arise. Models as representations are constrained both ontologically (by their targets) and pragmatically (by the purposes…Read more
-
304Puzzled by realism: a response to DeichselErasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics 4 (1): 42-52. 2011.No realist project in and about economics is close to completion. There are many open issues that remain to be addressed and resolved. Simon Deichsel (2011) has written a healthy challenge that should offer some useful inspiration to anyone interested in assessing and perhaps contributing to the realist projects. He argues against realism and in support of some sort of anti-realism. My response first deals with some conceptual issues regarding the very ideas of realism and anti-realism. I will t…Read more
-
302The truth of false idealizations in modelingIn Paul Humphreys & Cyrille Imbert (eds.), Models, Simulations, and Representations, Routledge. 2011.Modeling involves the use of false idealizations, yet there is typically a belief or hope that modeling somehow manages to deliver true information about the world. The paper discusses one possible way of reconciling truth and falsehood in modeling. The key trick is to relocate truth claims by reinterpreting an apparently false idealizing assumption in order to make clear what possibly true assertion is intended when using it. These include interpretations in terms of negligibility, applicabilit…Read more
-
180On the method of isolation in economicsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 26 19-54. 1992.
-
163Economics Imperialism: Concept and ConstraintsPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (3): 351-380. 2009.The paper seeks to offer [1] an explication of a concept of economics imperialism, focusing on its epistemic aspects; and [2] criteria for its normative assessment. In regard to [1], the defining notion is that of explanatory unification across disciplinary boundaries. As to [2], three kinds of constraints are proposed. An ontological constraint requires an increased degree of ontological unification in contrast to mere derivational unification. An axiological constraint derives from variation i…Read more
-
157Models and the locus of their truthSynthese 180 (1). 2011.If models can be true, where is their truth located? Giere (Explaining science, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1998) has suggested an account of theoretical models on which models themselves are not truth-valued. The paper suggests modifying Giere’s account without going all the way to purely pragmatic conceptions of truth—while giving pragmatics a prominent role in modeling and truth-acquisition. The strategy of the paper is to ask: if I want to relocate truth inside models, how do I get…Read more
-
153Isolation, idealization and truth in economicsPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 38 147-168. 1994.Challenges the widely held view that good models must necessarily be simplifications and hence cannot be true. This is done by distinguishing between whole truth (complete description) and truth (essential description, attained by the method of isolation).
-
151Modeling in biology and economicsBiology and Philosophy 26 (5): 613-615. 2011.Much of biological and economic theorizing takes place by modeling, the indirect study of real-world phenomena by the construction and examination of models. Books and articles about biological and economic theory are often books and articles about models, many of which are highly idealized and chosen for their explanatory power and analytical convenience rather than for their fit with known data sets. Philosophers of science have recognized these facts and have developed literatures about the n…Read more
-
148MISSing the World. Models as Isolations and Credible Surrogate SystemsErkenntnis 70 (1): 29-43. 2009.This article shows how the MISS account of models—as isolations and surrogate systems—accommodates and elaborates Sugden’s account of models as credible worlds and Hausman’s account of models as explorations. Theoretical models typically isolate by means of idealization, and they are representatives of some target system, which prompts issues of resemblance between the two to arise. Models as representations are constrained both ontologically (by their targets) and pragmatically (by the purposes…Read more
-
140Reglobalizing Realism by Going Local, or Should Our Formulations of Scientific Realism be Informed about the Sciences?Erkenntnis 63 (2): 231-251. 2005.In order to examine the fit between realism and science, one needs to address two issues: the unit of science question (realism about which parts of science?) and the contents of realism question (which realism about science?). Answering these questions is a matter of conceptual and empirical inquiry by way local case studies. Instead of the more ordinary abstract and global scientific realism, what we get is a doubly local scientific realism based on a bottom-up strategy. Representative formula…Read more
-
130Symposium on explanations and social ontology 2: Explanatory ecumenism and economics imperialismEconomics and Philosophy 18 (2): 235-257. 2002.In a series of insightful publications, Philip Pettit and Frank Jackson have argued for an explanatory ecumenism that is designed to justify a variety of types of social scientific explanation of different , including structural and rational choice explanations. Their arguments are put in terms of different kinds of explanatory information; the distinction between causal efficacy, causal relevance and explanatory relevance within their program model of explanation; and virtual reality and resili…Read more
-
125On the structure of explanatory unification: the case of geographical economicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 40 (2): 185-195. 2009.A newly emerged field within economics, known as geographical economics claims to have provided a unified approach to the study of spatial agglomerations at different spatial scales by showing how these can be traced back to the same basic economic mechanisms. We analyze this contemporary episode of explanatory unification in relation to major philosophical accounts of unification. In particular, we examine the role of argument patterns in unifying derivations, the role of ontological conviction…Read more
-
124Realism and antirealism about economicsIn Handbook of the Philosophy of Economics, . pp. 3--24. 2012.Economics is a controversial scientific discipline. One of the traditional issues that has kept economists and their critics busy is about whether economic theories and models are about anything real at all. The critics have argued that economic models are based on assumptions that are so utterly unrealistic that those models become purely fictional and have nothing informative to say about the real world. Many also claim that an antirealist instrumentalism (allegedly outlined by Milton Friedman…Read more
-
114Philosophy of interdisciplinarity. What? Why? How?European Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (3): 327-342. 2016.Compared to the massive literature from other disciplinary perspectives on interdisciplinarity, philosophy of science is only slowly beginning to pay systematic attention to this powerful trend in contemporary science. The paper provides some metaphilosophical reflections on the emerging “Philosophy of Interdisciplinarity”. What? I propose a conception of PhID that has the qualities of being broad and neutral as well as stemming from within the agenda of philosophy of science. It will investigat…Read more
-
105EconomicsIn Martin Curd & Stathis Psillos (eds.), The Routledge companion to philosophy of science, Routledge. 2008.
-
103Scientific Imperialism: Difficulties in Definition, Identification, and AssessmentInternational Studies in the Philosophy of Science 27 (3): 325-339. 2013.This article identifies and analyses issues related to defining and evaluating the so-called scientific imperialism. It discusses John Dupré's account, suggesting that it is overly conservative and does not offer a definition of scientific imperialism in not presenting it as a phenomenon of interdisciplinarity. It then discusses the recent account by Steve Clarke and Adrian Walsh, taking issue with ideas such as illegitimate occupation, counterfactual progress, and culturally significant values.…Read more
-
93Explanatory Unification: Double and DoubtfulPhilosophy of the Social Sciences 31 (4): 488-506. 2001.Explanatory unification—the urge to “explain much by little”—serves as an ideal of theorizing not only in natural sciences but also in the social sciences, most notably in economics. The ideal is occasionally challenged by appealing to the complexity and diversity of social systems and processes in space and time. This article proposes to accommodate such doubts by making a distinction between two kinds of unification and suggesting that while such doubts may be justified in regard to mere deriv…Read more
-
81How to Combine Rhetoric and Realism in the Methodology of EconomicsEconomics and Philosophy 4 (1): 89. 1988.The tone of this paper is largely critical. Therefore, I would like to begin by praising Donald McCloskey and Arjo Klamer for their exciting and provocative initiative in the metatheory of economics. They have done us a great favor by opening our eyes to some hidden aspects in the intellectual practices of economists. They have shown that economics is rhetoric; it is persuasion, discourse, conversation, and negotiation, to use their favorite phrases. They have provided plausible arguments and il…Read more
-
77Aspects of realism about economicsTheoria 13 (2): 301-319. 1998.A few aspects of the issue of realism are addressed in the context of a social science. The paper looks for adjustments needed in our conceptions of scientiflc realism to accommodate some peculiarities of economics. Ontologically speaking, economics appears to be closely linked to commonsense conceptions of the world, thus the problem of theoretical concepts does not emerge in the same form it is often taken to exist in physics. Theory formation is largely a matter of idealization and isolation …Read more
-
75Interdisciplinarity in action: philosophy of science perspectivesEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Science 6 (3): 323-326. 2016.Interdisciplinarity has become a dominant research policy imperative1 – exercised by European Research Council and other funding agencies at different scales – and a substantial topic in science studies fields outside philosophy of science, including science education, research management (particularly team management) and scientometrics. Philosophers of science have only recently begun to dedicate more attention to this feature of contemporary science. The present collection of studies aspires …Read more
-
University of HelsinkiDepartment of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)Retired faculty
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Social Science |
General Philosophy of Science |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Biology |
Philosophy of Social Science |
General Philosophy of Science |