IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/revpoe/v13y2001i4p483-501.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Critical Realism as a Basis for Economic Methodology: A critique

Author

Listed:
  • Bernard Walters
  • David Young

Abstract

This paper considers the claim that critical realism provides a convincing critique of mainstream economics and offers a sound methodological basis for an alternative approach. It argues that critical realism presents a tendentious definition of positivism and a characterisation of mainstream economics that is misleading, and that it misrepresents the nature and purpose of the work of Hume and modern Humean philosophers. It also argues that critical realism's bold ontological claims lack epistemological support. The paper concludes that critical realism does not provide a compelling basis for economic methodology.

Suggested Citation

  • Bernard Walters & David Young, 2001. "Critical Realism as a Basis for Economic Methodology: A critique," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(4), pages 483-501.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:13:y:2001:i:4:p:483-501
    DOI: 10.1080/09538250120099971
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09538250120099971
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/09538250120099971?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Boland, Lawrence A, 1979. "A Critique of Friedman's Critics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 17(2), pages 503-522, June.
    2. Baert, Patrick, 1996. "Realist Philosophy of the Social Sciences and Economics: A Critique," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 20(5), pages 513-522, September.
    3. Lawson, Tony, 1989. "Abstraction, Tendencies and Stylised Facts: A Realist Approach to Economic Analysis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 13(1), pages 59-78, March.
    4. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    5. Tony Lawson, 1994. "The Nature of Post Keynesianism and Its Links to Other Traditions: A Realist Perspective," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 503-538, July.
    6. Runde, Jochen, 1998. "Assessing Causal Economic Explanations," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 50(2), pages 151-172, April.
    7. Stephen D. Parsons, 1996. "Post Keynesian Realism and Keynes’ General Theory," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(3), pages 419-441, March.
    8. Ralf Eriksson, 1998. "Was Keynes a Realist?," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 175-197.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Steve Fleetwood, 2005. "A critical realist reply to Walters & Young," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(4), pages 587-600.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paul Downward, "undated". "Risk, Uncertainty and Inference in Post Keynesian Economics:A Realist Commentary," Working Papers 98-8, Staffordshire University, Business School.
    2. Andrew Mearman, 2006. "Critical realism in economics and open-systems ontology: A critique," Review of Social Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 64(1), pages 47-75.
    3. Lawrence A. Boland & Irene M. Gordon, 1992. "Criticizing positive accounting theory," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 142-170, September.
    4. Dr Paul Downward, "undated". "Realism and Inference in Economics: A Note," Working Papers 98-7, Staffordshire University, Business School.
    5. Jochen Runde, 2001. "On Stephen Parsons' Philosophical Critique of Transcendental Realism," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(1), pages 101-114.
    6. G. Hodgson, 2006. "Some Claims Made for Critical Realism in Economics: Two Case Studies," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 7.
    7. van den Bergh, Jeroen C. J. M. & Ferrer-i-Carbonell, Ada & Munda, Giuseppe, 2000. "Alternative models of individual behaviour and implications for environmental policy," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 43-61, January.
    8. Lukáš Kovanda, 2010. "Kritický realismus: ontologická báze postkeynesovské ekonomie [Critical Realism as an Ontological Basis of Post-Keynesianism]," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2010(5), pages 608-622.
    9. Paqué, Karl-Heinz, 1984. "How far is Vienna from Chicago? An essay on the methodology of two schools of dogmatic liberalism," Kiel Working Papers 209, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    10. Siobhan Austen & Therese Jefferson, 2006. "Comparing responses to critical realism," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(2), pages 257-282.
    11. Lee, Frederic, 2011. "The making of heterodox microeconomics," MPRA Paper 30907, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Yalcintas, Altug, 2013. "The Oomph in economic philosophy: a bibliometric analysis of the main trends, from the 1960s to the present," MPRA Paper 44191, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Jeroen C.J.M. van den Bergh & Ada Ferrer-I-Carbonell & Guiseppe Munda, 1998. "Models of Individual Behavior and Implications for Environmental Policy," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 98-121/3, Tinbergen Institute.
    14. Steven M. Shugan, 2007. "—It's the Findings, Stupid, Not the Assumptions," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 26(4), pages 449-459, 07-08.
    15. Thunström, Linda & Nordström, Jonas & Shogren, Jason F., 2015. "Certainty and overconfidence in future preferences for food," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 101-113.
    16. Carl Christian von Weizsäcker, 2011. "Homo Oeconomicus Adaptivus – Die Logik des Handelns bei veränderlichen Präferenzen," Discussion Paper Series of the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods 2011_10, Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods.
    17. Kanazawa, Satoshi, 2005. "Is "discrimination" necessary to explain the sex gap in earnings?," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(2), pages 269-287, April.
    18. Dhaval M. Dave, 2013. "Effects of Pharmaceutical Promotion: A Review and Assessment," NBER Working Papers 18830, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Steven N. Durlauf, 1996. "Statistical Mechanics Approaches to Socioeconomic Behavior," NBER Technical Working Papers 0203, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Manolis Galenianos & Rosalie Liccardo Pacula & Nicola Persico, 2012. "A Search-Theoretic Model of the Retail Market for Illicit Drugs," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 79(3), pages 1239-1269.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:revpoe:v:13:y:2001:i:4:p:483-501. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/CRPE20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.