Economics and the Philosophy of Science [Paperback]

Economists and other social scientists in this century have often supported economic arguments by referring to positions taken by philosophers of science. This important new book looks at the reliability of this practice and--in the process--provides economists, social scientists, and historians with the necessary background to discuss methodological matters with authority. Redman presents an accurate, critical, yet neutral survey of the modern philosophy of science from the Vienna Circle to the present, focusing particularly on logical positivism, sociological explanations of science (Polanyi, Fleck, Kuhn), the Popper family, and the history of science. She then deals with economic methodology in the twentieth century, looking at a wide range of methodological positions, especially those supported by positions from the philosophy of science.

Redman...has succeeded wondrously well.... How much time is spent socializing our new members to the ethical standards that we want to define our community enterprise? To ask such questions, as Redman forces us to do, is to enhance our awareness of the activity of what we call 'doing economics'. --Journal of Economic Literature

The author's command of the literature under review is truly impressive, both in supporting her train of thought with pertinent illustrative material, and in revealing a thorough-going understanding of the writings surveyed.... Her work will stand firmly alongside Bruce J. Caldwell'sBeyondPositivismas one of the most widely read and frequently cited sources on the history of economic methodology. --Journal of Economic Issues

[A] valuable contribution that should be required reading for those interested in economic methodology and related questions.... The book makes the strongest case that has yet been made in the economics literature for Bartley's critical rationalism, and it provides a useful survey of recent methodological writings witl£4