Some Reflections on Methodology of Critical Realism

Lukas Maslo () and Zdenek Chytil ()
Additional contact information
Lukas Maslo: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Economics, Prague
Zdenek Chytil: Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics, University of Economics, Prague

No 3205937, Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences from International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences

Abstract: The subject matter of this paper is the controversy about realism of assumptions from the perspective of critical realism. The authors apply the notional apparatus of philosophical logic to clarify the essence of this controversy. By means of translating the often ambivalent and sometimes mysterious terms of Jespersen (2009) into the straightforward language of classical philosophy, they authors make an effort to tear down some of the barriers of the inter-paradigmatic controversies about methodology. The conclusion is drawn that as long as the assumptions of a model affect but the accidentia logica of the model?s constituting notions, the formalist stand can be taken and Friedman?s instrumentalist approach will be justifiable; as soon as the assumptions of a model affect the differentiae specificae of the model?s constituting notions, the substantivist stand must be taken and Friedman?s instrumentalist approach fails. Finally, the authors assert that the Post-Keynesian notion of critical realism is much more compatible with the perception thereof as a genus that the perception thereof as a species.

Keywords: critical realism; differentia specifica; essentia generica; accidens logicum; ontology; epistemology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 B41 E02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 14 pages
Date: 2016-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mac and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Proceedings of the Proceedings of the 5th Economic & Finance Conference, Miami, Mar 2016, pages 239-252

Downloads: (external link)
https://iises.net/proceedings/5th-economics-financ ... =32&iid=016&rid=5937 First version, 2016

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sek:iefpro:3205937

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Proceedings of Economics and Finance Conferences from International Institute of Social and Economic Sciences
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klara Cermakova ().