Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Economics

Boylan and O'Gorman inject a fresh empiricist voice into the recent debates in economic methodology.... praise the book for its careful scholarship, its intellectual novelty and its familiarity with existing methodological literature." D. Wade Hands, University of Puget Sound, USA Preface, Acknowledgements, Introduction, 1 PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE AND ECONOMICS: Methodological perspectives, 2 RHETORIC: The abandonment of methodology?, 3 CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE: Methodology revisited, 4 SCIENTIFIC REALISM: Methodology reinstated, 5 THE PLAUSIBILITY OF ECONOMIC ASSUMPTIONS: Realist perspectives, 6 CONSTRUCTIVE EMPIRICISM: The challenge to scientific realism, 7 TOWARDS A RECONSTRUCTION OF ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY: The emergence of causal holism, 8 FROM FRIEDMAN TO KALDOR: A causal holist critique of the methodology of neoclassical economics, 9 CAUSAL HOLISM: Beyond rhetoric and realism, Bibliography,Index