Towards a critical realist-inspired economic methodology

Bjørn-Ivar Davidsen ()
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Bjørn-Ivar Davidsen: Ostfold University College

The Journal of Philosophical Economics, 2010, vol. 3, issue 2, 74-96

Abstract: This paper argues that critical realism conceived as a meta­theory for scientific activities offers a consistent set of helpful philosophical resources from which a potentially fruitful position of economic methodology may be developed. When fully developed, a critical realist­inspired economic methodology may in turn underlabour for more concrete scientific undertakings, economic theorising and applied analyses. Adopting such a strategy for further advancement of the critical realist project would prove a much needed supplement to, or perhaps even substitute for, the currently dominating strategy of grand scale philosophical underlabouring aimed at reorienting more or less the whole discipline of economics. The main trust of the argument made then, is that critical realism comes with a constructive and practical potential that goes beyond critiques of mainstream economics and philosophical underlabouring for already existing schools of thought within economics and that it is time for this potential to be actualised.

Keywords: critical realism; meta-theory; ontology; epistemology; methodology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bus:jphile:v:3:y:2010:i:2:p:74-96

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