Download or read book The Philosophy of Economics written by Daniel M. Hausman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 11 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, explores the nature of economics as a science, including classic texts and newer essays.

Download or read book Theories of Scientific Method written by Robert Nola and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-12-18 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it to be scientific? Is there such a thing as scientific method? And if so, how might such methods be justified? Robert Nola and Howard Sankey seek to provide answers to these fundamental questions in their exploration of the major recent theories of scientific method. Although for many scientists their understanding of method is something they just pick up in the course of being trained, Nola and Sankey argue that it is possible to be explicit about what this tacit understanding of method is, rather than leave it as some unfathomable mystery. They robustly defend the idea that there is such a thing as scientific method and show how this might be legitimated. This book begins with the question of what methodology might mean and explores the notions of values, rules and principles, before investigating how methodologists have sought to show that our scientific methods are rational. Part 2 of this book sets out some principles of inductive method and examines its alternatives including abduction, IBE, and hypothetico-deductivism. Part 3 introduces probabilistic modes of reasoning, particularly Bayesianism in its various guises, and shows how it is able to give an account of many of the values and rules of method. Part 4 considers the ideas of philosophers who have proposed distinctive theories of method such as Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn and Feyerabend and Part 5 continues this theme by considering philosophers who have proposed naturalised theories of method such as Quine, Laudan and Rescher. This book offers readers a comprehensive introduction to the idea of scientific method and a wide-ranging discussion of how historians of science, philosophers of science and scientists have grappled with the question over the last fifty years.

Download or read book Knowledge Institutions and Evolution in Economics written by Brian Loasby and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2002-09-26 with total page 185 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume explores how the limitations of human knowledge creates opportunities as well as problems in the modern economy.

Download or read book Imperfect Knowledge Economics written by Roman Frydman and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2023-09-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Posing a major challenge to economic orthodoxy, Imperfect Knowledge Economics asserts that exact models of purposeful human behavior are beyond the reach of economic analysis. Roman Frydman and Michael Goldberg argue that the longstanding empirical failures of conventional economic models stem from their futile efforts to make exact predictions about the consequences of rational, self-interested behavior. Such predictions, based on mechanistic models of human behavior, disregard the importance of individual creativity and unforeseeable sociopolitical change. Scientific though these explanations may appear, they usually fail to predict how markets behave. And, the authors contend, recent behavioral models of the market are no less mechanistic than their conventional counterparts: they aim to generate exact predictions of "irrational" human behavior. Frydman and Goldberg offer a long-overdue response to the shortcomings of conventional economic models. Drawing attention to the inherent limits of economists' knowledge, they introduce a new approach to economic analysis: Imperfect Knowledge Economics (IKE). IKE rejects exact quantitative predictions of individual decisions and market outcomes in favor of mathematical models that generate only qualitative predictions of economic change. Using the foreign exchange market as a testing ground for IKE, this book sheds new light on exchange-rate and risk-premium movements, which have confounded conventional models for decades. Offering a fresh way to think about markets and representing a potential turning point in economics, Imperfect Knowledge Economics will be essential reading for economists, policymakers, and professional investors.

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Economics written by Harold Kincaid and published by Oxford Handbooks Online. This book was released on 2009-03-26 with total page 689 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is the first comprehensive, cohesive, and accessible reference source to the philosophy of economics, presenting important new scholarship by top scholars.

Download or read book New Methodological Perspectives on Observation and Experimentation in Science written by Wenceslao J. González and published by Netbiblo. This book was released on 2010-12-29 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Observation and experimentation are central topics of philosophy and methodology of science. The empirical sciences have commonly been associated to observational and experimental processes, because they have been considered crucial for testing the contents of these. Thus, observation and experimentation have received attention from different angles, and they have been historically relevant in the advancement of science. Their philosophical-methodological analysis includes some key aspects those related to axiological, epistemological and methodological issues. New Methodological Perspectives on Observation and Experimentation in Science deals with a classic topic that is seen from new angles. Its nine chapters seek “non-traditional” aspects, trying to extend the boundaries of this philosophical-methodological theme. They are presented in five sections: 1) A Philosophical-Methodological Context; 2) Experience and Scientific Observations; 3) Empirical Support and Experiments in Science; 4) Changes in the Framework on Observation and Experimentation; and 5) Enlarging the Philosophical Scope: Law and Ecology. Wenceslao J. Gonzalez is Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science (University of A Coruña). He is a Full Member of the International Academy for Philosophy of Sciences (AIPS), Visiting fellow at the Center for Philosophy of Science (University of Pittsburgh) and a Team Leader of the European Science Foundation program entitled “The Philosophy of Science in a European Perspective.” He has been named a Distinguished Researcher by the Main National University of San Marcos in Lima (Peru). He has been a visiting researcher at the Universities of St. Andrews, Münster and London (LSE). He has given lectures at the Universities of Pittsburgh, Stanford, Quebec and Helsinki. The conferences in which he has participated include those organized by the Universities of Uppsala, New South Wales, Bologna, Canterbury (NZ), and Beijing. He has edited 26 volumes on philosophy and methodology of science.

Download or read book A History of Macroeconomics from Keynes to Lucas and Beyond written by Michel De Vroey and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-08 with total page 451 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book retraces the history of macroeconomics from Keynes's General Theory to the present. Central to it is the contrast between a Keynesian era and a Lucasian - or dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) - era, each ruled by distinct methodological standards. In the Keynesian era, the book studies the following theories: Keynesian macroeconomics, monetarism, disequilibrium macro (Patinkin, Leijongufvud, and Clower) non-Walrasian equilibrium models, and first-generation new Keynesian models. Three stages are identified in the DSGE era: new classical macro (Lucas), RBC modelling, and second-generation new Keynesian modeling. The book also examines a few selected works aimed at presenting alternatives to Lucasian macro. While not eschewing analytical content, Michel De Vroey focuses on substantive assessments, and the models studied are presented in a pedagogical and vivid yet critical way.

Download or read book An Engine Not a Camera written by Donald MacKenzie and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2008-08-29 with total page 782 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as "futures." By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion were outstanding worldwide. MacKenzie suggests that this growth could never have happened without the development of theories that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities. MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most serious crises to hit the world's financial markets in recent years: the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. He also looks at finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist Benoit Mandelbrot's model of "wild" randomness. MacKenzie's pioneering work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants to understand how America's financial markets have grown into their current form.

Download or read book Self awareness written by M. D. Ferrari and published by Guilford Press. This book was released on 1998-04-17 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This integrative volume brings together leading social scientists to present diverse perspectives on the emergence, development, and practical role of self-awareness. Shedding light on the fundamental question of how human beings come to understand who we are--in relation to ourselves, to others, and to the broader world--the book does justice to the complexity of its subject while remaining accessible to readers in a wide range of disciplines. Chapters cover such topics as developmental and evolutionary aspects of self-awareness; the self, consciousness, and theory of mind; and connections between self-awareness and social, affective, academic, and neuropsychological functioning.

Download or read book Reinterpreting Modern Culture written by Paul van Tongeren and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Attempts to elucidate the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche through the experience of his writings. After a chapter devoted to Nietzsche's style and the proper way to read the philosopher, chapters focus separately on his thoughts on knowledge and reality, morality and politics, and religion. Each chapter presents fairly lengthy selections from Nietzsche's works (in both German and English) and then proceeds to comment on the texts with the help of additional brief selections. Paper edition available (1-55753-157-9), $24.95. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Download or read book Post Popperian Methodology of Economics written by Neil de Marchi and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For much of the last three decades or more economic methodology has been dominated by the work of Karl Popper who advocated the position that science is what it is by virtue of its adherence to certain ideals. The methodology of science is therefore not empirical or descriptive, but rather a set of rules for producing `rational' or `objective' knowledge. This volume presents alternatives to an exclusively Popperian methodology: its purpose is not to reject Popper, but to show there are other ways of construing methodology. The book is divided into three parts. Part I contains two critical surveys -- one dealing with the rule-based tradition which has had a great influence on economic methodology in the last three decades and the other arguing for the social conditioning of knowledge. Part II is concerned with auxiliary hypotheses needed to link rational choice at the social and individual levels. Part III follows up on aspects raised in linking rational choice at the social and individual levels by looking at specific issues, including rhetoric and economics and gender and economic research.

Download or read book The Reconstruction of Economic Theory written by Philip Mirowski and published by Springer. This book was released on 2007-06-30 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The mandate given to the editor of the present volume was succinct and to the point: gather together some of the most recent attempts to remake economic theory at its most fundamental levels, and avoid the two debased brands of academic revolutions. Now, anyone would have realized that this would be a devilishly difficult task, more likely than not to backfire; but, in retrospect, the editor still marvels at the complacency with which he embarked on the enterprise. It was quite easy to identify the critics of conventional economics who had little more than criticism to offer; it was much more difficult to feel certain that he had actually stumbled upon a substantive divergence from the orthodoxy that appeared to promise further fruitful developments. ... Forewarned and forearmed, the prospective reader should then be equipped to judge for him- or herself whether truth in advertising has been further abused, or if something a little more interesting and entertaining is afoot."--Pages 1-2

Download or read book Building in France Building in Iron Building in Ferroconcrete written by Sigfried Giedion and published by Getty Publications. This book was released on 1995-09-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Building in France, Building in Iron, Building in Ferroconcretre (1928)—published now for the first time in English—Sigfried Giedion positioned himself as an eloquent advocate of modern architecture. This was the first book to exalt Le Corbusier as the artistic champion of the new movement. It also spelled out many of the tenets of Modernism that are now regarded as myths, among them the impoverishment of nineteenth-century architectural thinking and practice, the contrasting vigor of engineering innovations, and the notion of Modernism as technologically preordained.

Download or read book Reflexivity and Economics written by John Davis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The form of ‘reflexivity’ – defined by the dictionary as that which is ‘directed back upon itself’ – that is most relevant to economic methodology is that where observation of the economy leads to ideas that change behavior, which in turn changes (is directed back upon) the economy itself. As George Soros explains: "if investors believe that markets are efficient then that belief will change the way they invest, and that in turn will change the nature of the markets they are observing ... That is the principle of reflexivity". Although various versions of reflexivity have long been discussed, in recent years George Soros has been particularly effective in bringing ideas about reflexivity to the attention of the economic and financial communities. In a series of writings he has systematically argued that reflexivity is not only an important aspect of economic life, it is an aspect that is neglected in most mainstream theorizing; and in addition, that the neglect of reflexivity has been responsible for the failure of economists to predict, explain, or offer a solution for events such as the recent financial crisis. Soros’ ideas about reflexivity have important methodological significance, and his chapter in this book summarizes and clarifies his arguments. His contribution is joined by those of thirteen scholars from a wide range of relevant fields, who provide a commentary on the idea of reflexivity in economics. This book was originally published as a special issue of The Journal of Economic Methodology.

Download or read book Models of Discovery written by Herbert A. Simon and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 471 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We respect Herbert A. Simon as an established leader of empirical and logical analysis in the human sciences while we happily think of him as also the loner; of course he works with many colleagues but none can match him. He has been writing fruitfully and steadily for four decades in many fields, among them psychology, logic, decision theory, economics, computer science, management, production engineering, information and control theory, operations research, confirmation theory, and we must have omitted several. With all of them, he is at once the technical scientist and the philosophical critic and analyst. When writing of decisions and actions, he is at the interface of philosophy of science, decision theory, philosophy of the specific social sciences, and inventory theory (itself, for him, at the interface of economic theory, production engineering and information theory). When writing on causality, he is at the interface of methodology, metaphysics, logic and philosophy of physics, systems theory, and so on. Not that the interdisciplinary is his orthodoxy; we are delighted that he has chosen to include in this book both his early and little-appreciated treatment of straightforward philosophy of physics - the axioms of Newtonian mechanics, and also his fine papers on pure confirmation theory.

Download or read book The Methodology of Economics written by Mark Blaug and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1992-07-31 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is an examination of the nature of economic explanation. The opening chapters introduce current thinking in the philosophy of science and review the literature on methodology. Professor Blaug then turns to the troublesome question of the logical status of welfare economics, giving the reader an understanding of the outstanding issues in the methodology of economics. This is followed by a series of case studies of leading economic controversies, which shows how controversies in economics may be illuminated by paying attention to questions of methodology. A final chapter draws the strands together and gives the author's view of what is wrong with modern economics. This book is a revised and updated edition of a classic work on the methodology of economics, in which Professor Blaug develops his discussion of the latest developments in macroeconomics, general equilibrium theory and international trade theory. A new section on the rationality postulate is also added.

Download or read book The Microeconomics of Complex Economies written by Wolfram Elsner and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 599 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Microeconomics of Complex Economies uses game theory, modeling approaches, formal techniques, and computer simulations to teach useful, accessible approaches to real modern economies. It covers topics of information and innovation, including national and regional systems of innovation; clustered and networked firms; and open-source/open-innovation production and use. Its final chapter on policy perspectives and decisions confirms the value of the toolset. Written so chapters can be used independently, the book includes an introduction to computer simulation and pedagogical supplements. Its formal, accessible treatment of complexity goes beyond the scopes of neoclassical and mainstream economics. The highly interdependent economy of the 21st century demands a reconsideration of economic theories. - Describes the usefulness of complex heterodox economics - Emphasizes divergences and convergences with neoclassical economic theories and perspectives - Fits easily into courses on intermediate microeconomics, industrial organization, and games through self-contained chapters