Kaldor on Method: A Challenge to Contemporary Methodology

Thomas A Boylan and Paschal O'Gorman

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1997, vol. 21, issue 4, 503-17

Abstract: This paper examines Nicholas Kaldor's methodological critique of orthodox economic theory in the light of recent developments in the philosophy of science. T. Lawson (1989) has provided the most philosophically sophisticated interpretation of Kaldor's methodological work available to date from a critical realist perspective. The authors argue, in this paper, that critical realism, while clearly superior to existing orthodox approaches, is philosophically too restrictive and an alternative framework, causal holism, is developed. Causal holism, based on a synthesis of W. Van O. Quine's holism and B. van Fraassen's constructive empiricism, provides a methodological reconstruction of Kaldor that is ultimately more compatible with his 'nonmonist' critique of orthodox equilibrium economics. Copyright 1997 by Oxford University Press.

Date: 1997
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