Contrast explanation in economics: its context, meaning, and potential

Jamie Morgan and Heikki Patomäki

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2017, vol. 41, issue 5, 1391-1418

Abstract: In this article we place Tony Lawson’s account of contrast explanation in context. Lawson’s development of it is given meaning both by the roots of the approach in his work on social ontology and the state of economics that provides the grounds for the critique contained in that social ontology. This is important because such an approach to explanation is not new. Most notably, van Fraassen and Garfinkel have developed it in particular ways and for particular purposes within the philosophy of science and social theory. Setting out the different ways in which the contrastive approach has been developed is useful for identifying what is different about Lawson’s approach, its potential and limits. Lawson’s proposal is more modest and focusses on causal investigation in a manner that flows from his approach to social ontology. Contrast explanation provides a substitute for controlled experiments and facilitates identifying social mechanisms. It also enables exploration of the manifold presuppositions of our explanatory questions. We argue that this is a useful and important contribution to overcoming some of the many problems economics faces.

Keywords: contrast explanation; social ontology; Lawson; Garfinkel; van Fraassen (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bex033 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:oup:cambje:v:41:y:2017:i:5:p:1391-1418.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().