Methodology and History of Economics

Bruce Caldwell is a Research Professor of Economics and the Director of the Center for the History of Political Economy at Duke University. He is the author of Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the 20th Century, first published in 1982. For the past three decades, his research has focused on the multi-faceted writings of the Nobel prize-winning economist and social theorist Friedrich A. Hayek. John Davis, Professor Emeritus of Economics, Marquette University and University of Amsterdam, is author of The Theory of the Individual in Economics (2003). He is also the editor of the Routledge Advances in Social Economics series. Davis’ research has focused on the philosophy and methodology of economics, identity and economics, and healthcare economics. Uskali Mäki is a Philosophy Professor at the University of Helsinki and a Visiting Professor at Nankai University, China. He is a former editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology (1995–2005). His current research is mainly on the philosophy of economics and other social sciences, on models, scientific realism, interdisciplinarity, and social aspects of science. Esther-Mirjam Sent is Professor of Economic Theory and Policy at Radboud University in the Netherlands. Sent is co-editor of the Journal of Institutional Economics. Her research explores behavioral economics, experimental economics, and economic policy, as well as the history and philosophy of economic science.

Introduction: Wade Hands as an Historian and Philosopher of Economics Part 1: Reflection with and without Rules 1. Insider, Outsider, Stranger, Resident Field-Worker? Reflections on Wade Hands’ Authorial Stance in Reflection without Rules 2. Reflections without Rules: Reflections about Rules after Twenty Years 3. Social Aspects of Economics Modelling: Disciplinary Norms and Performativity Part 2: The methodological dimensions and implications of Paul Samuelson’s economics 4. Unification and Pluralism in Economics 5. In Search of Santa Claus: Samuelson, Stigler, and Coase Theorem Worlds 6. Neo-Samuelsonian Methodology, Normative Economics, and the Quantitative Intentional Stance Part 3: Pragmatism 7. Models, Truth, and Analytic Inference in Economics 8. Institutional Economics and John Dewey’s Instrumentalism 9. E. F. Schumacher’s Metanoia: Rejecting Homo Oeconomicus, 1950–1977 Part 4: Behavioral Economics 10. Hands on Nudging 11. Does the Inclusion of Social Preferences in Economic Models Challenge the Positive–Normative Distinction?