Problems with Realism in Economics

Economics and Philosophy 14 (2):185-213 (1998)
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Abstract

This essay attempts to distinguish the pressing issues for economists and economic methodologists concerning realism in economics from those issues that are of comparatively slight importance. In particular I shall argue that issues concerning the goals of science are of considerable interest in economics, unlike issues concerning the evidence for claims about unobservables, which have comparatively little relevance. In making this argument, this essay raises doubts about the two programs in contemporary economic methodology that raise the banner of realism. In particular I argue that the banner makes it more difficult to relate the concerns of those who wave it to those of other methodologists. Although this essay argues that many of the debates in this century between scientific realists and their opponents are not relevant to economics, it does not attack scientific realism, and it does not urge economists or economic methodologists to reject it.

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Daniel Hausman
University of Wisconsin, Madison

References found in this work

The scientific image.C. Van Fraassen Bas - 1980 - New York: Oxford University Press.
A realist theory of science.Roy Bhaskar - 1975 - New York: Routledge.
The Structure of Science.Ernest Nagel - 1961 - Les Etudes Philosophiques 17 (2):275-275.
Essays in Positive Economics.Milton Friedman - 1953 - University of Chicago Press.
Realism and truth.Michael Devitt - 1984 - Cambridge, Mass., USA: Blackwell.

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