Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T03:17:27.606Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Caveat Emptor: Economics and Contemporary Philosophy of Science

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

D. Wade Hands
D. Wade Hands*
Affiliation:
University of Puget Sound
*
†Department of Economics, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, 98416; e-mail: HANDS@UPS.EDU.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The relationship between economics and the philosophy of natural science has changed substantially during the last few years. What was once exclusively a one-way relationship from philosophy to economics now seems to be much closer to bilateral exchange. The purpose of this paper is to examine this new relationship. First, I document the change. Second, I examine the situation within contemporary philosophy of science in order to explain why economics might have its current appeal. Third, I consider some of the issues that might jeopardize the success of this philosophical project.

Type
Symposium: The Use of Economic Concepts in Contemporary Philosophy of Science
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 64 , Issue S4: Supplement. Proceedings of the 1996 Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association. Part II: Symposia Papers Dec., 1997 , 1997 , pp. S107 - S116
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank Esther-Mirjam Sent and Miriam Solomon for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

References

Bartley, W. W., III, (1990), Unfathomed Knowledge, Unmeasured Wealth. LaSalle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Boylan, T. A. and O'Gorman, P. F. (1995), Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Economics: Towards a Reformulation of Economic Methodology. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bradie, M. (1986), “Assessing Evolutionary Epistemology”, Biology and Philosophy 1: 401–459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cartwright, N. (1989), Nature's Capacities and their Measurement. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Cartwright, N., Cat, J., Fleck, L., and Uebel, T. E. (1996), Otto Neurath: Philosophy Between Science and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cat, J., Cartwright, N., and Chang, H. (1996), “Otto Neurath: Politics and the Unity of Science”, in Galison, P. and Stump, D. J. (eds.), The Disunity of Science: Boundaries, Contexts, and Power. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, pp. 347–369.Google Scholar
Diamond, A. M. (1988), “Science as a Rational Enterprise”, Theory and Decision 24:147–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fuller, S. (1994), “Mortgaging the Farm to Save the (Sacred) Cow”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 25: 251–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giere, R. (ed.) (1992), Cognitive Models of Science. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. I. (1986), Epistemology and Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Goldman, A. and Shaked, M. (1991), “An Economic Model of Scientific Activity and Truth Acquisition”, Philosophical Studies 63: 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. (1994a), “Blurred Boundaries: Recent Changes in the Relationship Between Economics and the Philosophy of Natural Science”, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 25: 751–772.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. (1994b), “The Sociology of Scientific Knowledge: Some Thoughts on the Possibilities”, in Backhouse, R. B. (ed.), New Directions in Economic Methodology. London: Routledge, pp. 75–106.Google Scholar
Hands, D. W. (1994c), “Restabilizing Dynamics: Construction and Constraint in the History of Walrasian Stability Theory”, Economics and Philosophy 10: 243–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. (1995), “Social Epistemology Meets the Invisible Hand: Kitcher on the Advancement of Science”, Dialogue 34: 605–621.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hands, D. W. (1996), “Economics and Laudan's Normative Naturalism: Bad News From Instrumental Rationality's Front Line”, Social Epistemology 10: 137–152.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hull, D. L. (1988), Science as a Process: An Evolutionary Account of the Social and Conceptual Development of Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kincaid, H. (1996), Philosophical Foundations of the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1990), “The Division of Cognitive Labor”, The Journal of Philosophy 87: 5–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1992), “The Naturalists Return”, The Philosophical Review 101: 53–114.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitcher, P. (1993), The Advancement of Science: Science Without Legend, Objectivity Without Illusions. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mäki, U. (1992), “Social Conditioning in Economics”, in Marchi, N. de (ed.), Post-Popperian Methodology of Economics: Recovering Practice. Boston: Kluwer, pp. 65–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, P. (1996), “The Economic Consequences of Philip Kitcher”, Social Epistemology 10, 153–169.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Peirce, C. S. (1879), “Note on the Theory of the Economy of Research”, United States Coast Survey for the Fiscal Year Ending June 1876. Washington, DC: U. S. Government Printing Office.Google Scholar
Polanyi, M. (1962), “The Republic of Science: Its Political and Economic Theory”, Minerva 1: 54–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. V. (1969), Ontological Relativity & Other Essays. New York: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescher, N. (1989), Cognitive Economy: The Economic Dimension of the Theory of Knowledge. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, A. (1992), Economics: Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sent, E-M. (1996), “What An Economist Can Teach Nancy Cartwright”, Social Epistemology 10: 171–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solomon, M. (1994), “Is There an Invisible Hand of Reason?” [forthcoming].Google Scholar
Stephan, P. E. (1996), “The Economics of Science”, Journal of Economic Literature Journal of Economic Literature: 34–1199.Google Scholar
Sterelny, K. (1994), “Science and Selection”, Biology and Philosophy 9: 45–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Uebel, T. E. (1992), Overcoming Logical Positivism From Within: The Emergence of Neurath's Naturalism in the Vienna Circle's Protocol Sentence Debate. Amsterdam: Editions Rodopi.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wible, J. R. (1992), “Fraud in Science: An Economic Approach”, Philosophy of the Social Sciences 22: 5–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wible, J. R. (1994), “Charles Sanders Peirce's Economy of Research”, Journal of Economic Methodology 1: 135–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar