Philosophy of Economics

Description

The last decade witnessed an unprecedented annual growth of the literature dealing with the philosophy of economics,as well as the first signs of an institutionalization (conferences, an international journal) of the philosophy of economics as a scientific subject in itself - in particular in the U.S. In 1981 a meeting took place with participants mainly of European "continental" origin. In July 1987, we organized a second conference "Philosophy of Economics II" at Tilburg Uni­ versity, The Netherlands, mainly aiming at the establishment of first contacts between the middle-European group and researchers from the U.S. The present volume contains the papers presented at this conference. Philosophical thought on economics in recent years split up in many different streams, two of which are represented in the larger part of this volume. The first of these streams was formed by a group of researchers mainly from middle-Europe, who make empirical studies of the logical structures of the different theories as they find them presented in economic literature. Two methods prevail here. First, the structuralist method, as exemplified in the writings of Sneed, Stegmiiller and others, of describing the object of a theory as a set of ("partial potential") models. Such models consist of sets and relationships between these sets, which represent the concepts used in the theory. Front Matter....Pages i-iii Introduction....Pages 1-3 Arbitrage Arguments....Pages 5-22 Average Explanations....Pages 23-42 Are Generic Predictions Enough?....Pages 43-68 Self-Refuting Theories of Strategic Interaction: A Paradox of Common Knowledge....Pages 69-85 Open Problems in the Foundations of Price Formation Dynamics....Pages 87-99 Economics and Technological Change: Some Conceptual and Methodological Issues....Pages 101-127 Ordinary Least Squares as a Method of Measurement....Pages 129-146 The Development of Marx’s Economic Theory....Pages 147-164 Structuralist Reconstructions of Classical and Keynesian Macroeconomics....Pages 165-181 Stratification of General Equilibrium Theory: A Synthesis of Reconstructions....Pages 183-205 Micro-Economic Models of Problem Choice in Basic Science....Pages 207-224 On the (Idealizational) Structure of Economic Theories....Pages 225-246 Sneed Versus Nowak: An Illustration in Economics....Pages 247-265 Back Matter....Pages 267-276