- •Contents
- •Acknowledgements
- •Notes on contributors
- •1 Introduction
- •WHAT IS HERMENEUTICS?
- •ALTERNATIVE VIEWS OF HERMENEUTICS FROM A PARTICULAR ECONOMIC STANDPOINT
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •2 Towards the native’s point of view
- •PRELUDE
- •IS THERE A PROBLEM?
- •A note of clarification
- •THREE WAYS OF DEALING WITH A PROBLEM4
- •ECONOMICS ACCORDING TO PICTURE I
- •IRONY IN PICTURE I
- •PICTURE II FOR ECONOMIC DISCOURSE
- •THE NATIVE’S POINT OF VIEW
- •CONCLUSION
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •3 Getting beyond objectivism
- •INTRODUCTION
- •HERMENEUTICS
- •GADAMER’S CRITIQUE OF OBJECTIVISM
- •RICOEUR’S CRITIQUE OF SUBJECTIVISM
- •EXPLANATION/UNDERSTANDING
- •CONCLUSION
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •4 Storytelling in economics1
- •NOTE
- •REFERENCES
- •5 The philosophical bases of institutionalist economics
- •THE DURKHEIM/MAUSS/DOUGLAS THESIS
- •PRAGMATISM AND PEIRCE
- •JOHN DEWEY
- •THORSTEIN VEBLEN
- •JOHN R.COMMONS
- •POST-1930s INSTITUTIONALISM
- •REVOLUTIONS IN SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY
- •ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •6 The scope and goals of economic science
- •Keynesian economics and the ‘scientization of politics’
- •Neoclassical economics and distorted communication
- •TOWARD A CRITICAL ECONOMIC SCIENCE
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •7 Austrian economics
- •INTRODUCTION
- •WHY HERMENEUTICS?
- •WHAT IS HERMENEUTICS?
- •INSTITUTIONS AND THE AUSTRIAN SCHOOL
- •HERMENEUTICAL ALLIES OF THE AUSTRIANS
- •REFERENCES
- •8 Practical syllogism, entrepreneurship and the invisible hand
- •SYNOPSIS OF THE ARGUMENT
- •THE CHALLENGE OF VERSTEHEN
- •CONCLUSION
- •ACNOWLEDGEMENTS
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •9 What is a price? Explanation and understanding
- •INTRODUCTION
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •10 The economics of rationality and the rationality of economics
- •INTRODUCTION
- •Description of RE theory
- •Psychological versus philosophical critiques of RE
- •EPISTEMIC ANALYSIS OF RE
- •The problem of epistemic regress
- •THE METHOD OF FOUNDATIONALISM
- •Problems with foundationalism
- •Foundationalism and economic methodology
- •Problems with positivism
- •THE COHERENCE STRATEGY
- •Coherence theory and rational economics
- •Problems with coherence theories
- •The lack of empirical inputs
- •Inter-system indeterminacy
- •Ambiguous coherence criteria
- •Vicious circularity
- •A problematic view of truth
- •Language as a mediator
- •Addressing the problem of relativism
- •ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •11 On the microfoundations of money
- •PHILOSOPHIC BACKGROUND
- •TOOLS AND METHODS
- •MONEY AND MARKETS
- •SUMMARY AND CONCLUDING REMARKS
- •ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •12 Self-interpretation, attention, and language
- •SELF-INTERPRETING UTILITY FUNCTIONS
- •SOCIAL THEORY AS PRACTICE
- •WHAT IS A GOOD?
- •ATTENTION AND LANGUAGE
- •ATTENTION AND ECONOMICS
- •IMPLICATIONS FOR ECONOMIC ANALYSIS
- •HERMENEUTICAL EXPECTATIONS
- •CONCLUSION
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •13 What a non-Paretian welfare economics would have to look like
- •INTRODUCTION
- •HOW DO NON-PARETIAN APPROACHES DIFFER?
- •A central problem
- •Developing a standard
- •Aggregation
- •WHAT AN ACTUAL STANDARD MIGHT LOOK LIKE
- •Discovery and innovation
- •Complexity
- •Provision of consumer goods
- •SECOND-BEST CONSIDERATIONS
- •A NON-FOUNDATIONALIST APPROACH
- •CONCLUDING COMMENTS
- •ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •14 The hermeneutical view of freedom
- •WE LIVE IN A WORLD OF SIGNIFICANCE
- •THE ‘IS’ WITHIN THE ‘OUGHT’
- •REASON, SPEECH AND PRICES
- •THE SATISFACTION OF GENERATED WANTS
- •PROCESS AND ORDER
- •Advertising
- •Property rights
- •CONCLUSION: COMPETITION AND LIBERTY
- •NOTES
- •REFERENCES
- •Index
108 INSTITUTIONALIST ECONOMICS
10Conventional histories of economic thought have not given sufficient attention to the importance of the institutionalist school for the rise of twenteith century macroeconomics. (Here, see Mirowski 1985.) The position of NBER as a nonpartisan purveyor of data and research was repudiated in the 1970s when Martin Feldstein was installed as director, at which point institutionalist themes disappeared from its agenda.
11‘I have heard it said that there is no such thing as a free lunch. It now appears possible that the universe is a free lunch’ (Guth 1983, p. 215).
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