‘If p? Then What?’ Thinking Within, With, and From Cases

Mary S. Morgan

Economic History Working Papers from London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History

Abstract: The provocative paper by John Forrester: ‘If p, Then What? Thinking in Cases’ (1996) opened up the question of case thinking as a separate mode of reasoning in the sciences. Case-based reasoning is certainly endemic across a number of sciences, but it has looked different according to where it has been found. This paper investigates this mode of science - namely thinking in cases - by questioning the different interpretations of ‘If p?’ and exploring the different interpretative responses of what follows in ‘Then What?’. The aim is to characterise how ‘reasoning in, within, with, and from cases’ forms a mode of scientific investigation for single cases, for runs of cases, and for comparative cases, drawing on materials from a range of different fields in which case-based reasoning appears.

Keywords: single cases; runs of cases; comparative cases; case-based reasoning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J1 N0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2019-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-ore
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