Uniwersytet Warszawski
UNIWERSYTET WARSZAWSKI
WYDZIAL ZARZADZANIA
Course outline for
CRITICAL METHODOLOGY of ECONOMICS and of other HUMAN SCIENCES
Prof. Patrick O’SULLIVAN
Course description:
This is not a descriptive course on methods of economics or other human sciences but rather a critical philosophically and logically based assessment of the methods widely used in Economics and other human sciences to explain human action and interaction. The course will begin from a discussion of the reasons for conducting such a philosophical critique of scientific method, it will then go on to examine some of the dominant methodological views found in contemporary economics noting the enduring influence of Milton Friedman’s approach (especially in econometrics) and also the post-modernist challenge to economic methods. The question of value neutrality in human science in general is raised as also is the set of implications of human subjectivity (self-consciousness and freedom to choose) for economics and other human sciences.
The course is divided into 5 broad topic areas
Main Course Topics
1. Definition and philosophical foundations of the study of critical methodology.
2. Friedman’s methodology: instrumentalism and the critique thereof.
3. Popper’s resolution of the problem of induction. Reservations about application of this to Economics; Lakatos, McCloskey.
4. Value neutrality in Economics and other human sciences.
5. Methodological differentiation between natural and human science (if time permits).
Learning objectives
By the end of the course students will be expected to have developed a critical awareness of the limitations of various scientific methods and hence of the limitations on what can be definitively established by scientific methods. They should also have an appreciation of the factors which are distinctive of human beings as at once subjects and objects of study in economics and in other human sciences and of the implications which this caries for the appropriate methods of explanation of human action.
Suggested readings
The course slide presentations provide a basic starting point and are structured as a set of study notes. Otherwise there is no set text for the course. What follows is a wide ranging list from which students may treat like a menu in a good restaurant, that is to say by no means reading all of these sources but reading selectively in accordance with their inclinations and interests, having attended lectures on the various main topics of the course. Our aim above all is to help students to begin to think critically and creatively for themselves.
Further readings could include the following:
Ayer, A J "Language Truth and Logic", Pelican Classic, London.
Backhouse, R (ed) ‘New directions in Economic Methodology’, Routledge, London
1994.
Backhouse, R. (ed) ‘Explorations in Economic Methodology’, Routledge London, 1998.
Benn, S and "Rationality in Social Science", Routledge and Kegan Paul, London,
Mortimore, G (eds) 1976.
Blaug, M "The Methodology of Economics" 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Boland, L "A Critique of Friedman's Critics" in Journal of Economic Literature, June 1979, pp 503-522. (This article is also to be found in the MARR and RAJ collection of essays listed below).
Boylan, T. and ‘Beyond Rhetoric and Realism in Economics’, Routledge, London.
O’Gorman, P. (1995)
Caldwell, B "Beyond Positivism", Allen and Unwin, London, 1982.
Derrida, J (ed "Deconstruction and Philosophy", University of Chicago Press, 1987.
by Sallis, J)
Descartes, R "Discourse on Method and the Meditations", Penguin Classic, London.
Feyerabend, P "Against Method", NLB, London, 1975.
Foucault, M "Madness and Civilisation", 1967, London.
Friedman, M "The Methodology of Positive Economics", in his Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, 1953.
Geuss, R "The idea of a Critical Theory: Habermas and the Frankfurt School", Cambridge University Press, 1981.
Habermas, J "Knowledge and Human Interests", Heinemann, London, 1972.
Hayek, F "Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics", RKP, London, 1967.
Kolakowski, L "Positivist Philosophy", Pelican, London.
Kuhn, T "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions", 2nd Edition, University of Chicago Press, 1970.
Lakatos, I and "Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge", Cambridge University
Musgrave, A (eds) Press, 1970. See in particular the article by Lakatos in this collection entitled: "Falsifications and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes".
Latsis, S (ed) "Method and Appraisal in Economics", Cambridge University Press, 1976.
Machlup, F "Methodology of Economics and Other Human Sciences", Academic Press, New York, 1978.
Magee, B "Popper", Fontana, 1973.
MacCloskey, D. "The Rhetoric of Economics", Harvester, Wheatsheaf, Brighton, 1986.
Mäki U et alii (eds) ”Rationality, institutions and economic methodology”, Routledge, London 1993
Marr, W and "How economists explain: a reader", University Press of America,
Raj, G (eds) 1983. (Contains essay by Boland, L., 1979, quoted above already).
Melchert, N. ‘Who’s to say? A Dialogue on Relativism’, Hackett, Indiannopolis and
(1994) Cambridge.
Myrdal, G. ‘Value in Social Theory’, Routledge, London: see especially
(1958) Introduction by P. Streeten.
Nagel, E "The Structure of Science", RKP, London, 1963, see especially Chapters 13 and 14.
O’Driscoll, G. ‘The Economics of Time and Ignorance’, Blackwell, Oxford.
and Rizzo, M.
(1985)
O'Sullivan, P "Friedman's Methodology Revisited: A Proposal for a Decisive Resolution of the F-twist", in "Explorations of Knowledge", Vol 1, No 2, 1984.
O'Sullivan, P "Economic Methodology and Freedom to Choose", Allen and Unwin, London, 1987.
Plato "The Republic", Penguin Classic, London.
Popper, K "The Logic of Scientific Discovery", Hutchinson, London, 1958.
Popper, K "Conjectures and Refutations", RKP, London, 1963.
Popper, K "Objective Knowledge", Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972 (see Chapter 1 especially).
Roche, M "Phenomenology, Language and Social Science", RKP, London, 1973.
Sartre, J P "Existentialism and Humanism", Methuen, London.
Schutz, A "The Phenomenology of the Social World", Heinemann, London, 1972.
Stanley, D "Positive Economics and its Instrumental Defence", article in "Economica", 1985, p 305.
Weber, M "Economy and Society", edited by Roth and Wittich, Univeristy of California Press, 1978, see especially Chapter 1.
Winch, P "The Idea of a Social Science", RKP, London, 1958.
Wittgenstein, L "Philosophical Investigations", Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1958.