Proponents of the view that social structures are ontologically distinct from the people in whose actions they are immanent have assumed that structures can stand in causal relations to individual practices. Were causality to be no more than Humean concomitance correlations between structure and practices would be unproblematic. But two prominent advocates of the ontological account of structures, Bhaskar and Giddens, have also espoused a powers theory of causality. According to that theory causation is brought about by the activity of (...) particulars, in the social psychological case, individuals of some sort. Consistence would demand that structure be those individuals. But neither Giddens nor Bhaskar wish to reify structure to the extent that would fit it for a role as a powerful particular. If only human beings can be powerful particulars in these contexts, the only way that structures can be real must be as properties of conversational interactions. Human action is social just in so far as people direct themselves to engage well in joint activities with others. (shrink)

Marketing systems research has the potential to contribute to the well-being of individuals, communities and our environment but we need to ensure that we do not mechanistically apply inadequate approaches. This article identifies tensions and limitations within the developing marketing systems theory and literature. Using the tools of critical realism, we aim to critique the omissions in the metatheory of marketing systems research and then put forward CR to reconstruct a more comprehensive basis for the development of marketing systems theory. (...) We draw attention to the failings of current metatheory in its use of conflationary approaches to theorizing before setting out the features of a CR informed study of marketing systems. (shrink)

Dans cet article, nous proposons une analyse critique du nouveau consensus monétaire (NMC) d’un point de vue méthodologique, afin d’évaluer sa pertinence. Bien que les mantras du consensus ne soient pas contestables en tant que tels, nous soutenons l’idée que les fondements méthodologiques du NMC expliquent son échec paradigmatique à prévoir la crise financière de 2008, et à constituer une source d’inspiration fiable pour les politiques post-crise 2008. Nous mettons particulièrement l’accent sur la nature problématique des modèles pré-crise 2008. Nous (...) concluons que le nouveau consensus monétaire a cessé d’être pertinent plus de dix ans après le début de la crise mondiale. (shrink)

From the perspective of a realist philosophy of social science, the recent explosion of criticisms of mainstream economics, including reinvigorated Austrian criticism, provides what seems like a rich opportunity to join what are too often disjoined disciplinary interests and inquirers, and also to extend the arguments not only as regards the realist theory of social science, but also as regards the implications of this approach for economics. I begin with a minimum sketch of key features of realist philosophy of science (...) as I understand it. The central difference turns on the role and nature of explanation and of theory, between what is frequently termed ‘deductivism’, and on an alternative in which explanation requires the articulation of a causal mechanism, for example, the mechanism provided by molecular chemistry that gives us an understanding of oxidation. I take the position that in social science, explanation requires social causal mechanisms. I consider the Austrian contribution from this point of view and conclude with some hints regarding how the foregoing bears on our understanding of capitalism and socialism. (shrink)

Interventions for problematic alcohol use typically focus on clients as individuals even when these clients continue interacting with their social networks. This paper reports a study about young w...

Im ersten Teil unseres Aufsatzes charakterisieren wir den Beitrag der ‘modernen’ Wissenschaftstheorie zur Methodologie des Textverstehens; im zweiten Teil diskutieren wir exemplarisch zwei Konzeptionen der ‘neueren’ Hermeneutik. Ziel dieser kritischen Untersuchungen ist eine Förderung des Dialogs zwischen Wissenschaftstheorie, Hermeneutik und Literaturwissenschaft.

While mathematical economic theory is replete with structural relationships, it has been suggested that economists have been far to content with the structure created in their conceptual theoretical worlds, and have done too little to conceptualise or study the structure inherent in actual economic systems. I advance the state of the argument by proposing a typology of theory types - correspondence, instrumental, speculative, and literary - with differing attempts and approaches to building some kind of 'correspondence' between the ontological elements (...) and relationships in the real world and the ontological elements and relationships in the theoretical world. The central argument advanced in the present paper is that the use of mathematics in economics is of a fundamentally different nature than the use of mathematics in, for example, physics. In physics an attempt is made to capture the central and important features of the real world in mathematical equations, and a deeper understanding of the dynamics and relationships in the real world is gained as a consequence. In economics, by contrast, the use of mathematics does little to identify, abstract and capture the structure existing in real world social and economic systems. The use of mathematics may make economic theories very precise, may exclude individuals without extensive training to access economic theories, and may perform a rhetorical service in presenting economic theory as mathematical and, by analogy with physics, scientific. In many cases, however, the net effect of using mathematics in economic theory is the precise opposite of the effect of using mathematics in physics: in physics, mathematics brings us a greater focus on and awareness of structures and relationships in our physical reality, while in economics mathematics takes us away from a focus on and concern with the ontologies and structures in real world economic systems and focuses our attention on abstract, invented theoretical worlds often with unclear relationships to actual economic systems. (shrink)