Pluralism in economics appears to be a double-edged sword: we need more than one theory to grasp and explain the entire economic world, yet a plurality of possible explanations undermines the aspiration of the economic discipline to provide 'objective knowledge' in the singular of the 'one world...

Much economic theory, especially the orthodox variety, keeps away from structural methods and makes little or no reference to social structure: the word ‘structure’ is used only rarely and casually, so that its sense remains unclear. This paper argues that economics might gain from a richer,...

The Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007-09 prompted ca lls for fundamental reforms of economic theory. The role of theory in economics and in recent economic events is considered in light of two recen t books: the sociologist Richard Swedberg's The Art of Social Theory and the...

Economists seldom make explicit use of functional explanation, although they sometimes use it implicitly. Functional theorising has lost favour among social scientists in recent years, and few are now willing to adopt functional language. This paper argues that, despite some drawbacks, explicit...

Ever since the beginnings of classical political economy in the early nineteenth century, economics has faced culturally based criticism from a long line of literary authors. This paper argues that the old literary criticisms are still relevant and can provide useful guidelines for economic...

The Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007-09 prompted calls for fundamental reforms of economic theory. The role of theory in economics and in recent economic events is considered in light of two recent books: the sociologist Richard Swedberg's "The Art of Social Theory" and the...

I argue that economists have reasons internal to the way that evidence works in the sciences to re-discover the importance of the history of their own discipline. For it is a constitutive element of science - here conceived as an ongoing research practice (as opposed to as an explanatory...

On December 5th and 6th 2014, the Stanford Graduate School of Business hosted the Causality in the Social Sciences Conference. The conference brought together several distinguished speakers from philosophy, economics, finance, accounting and marketing with the bold mission of debating scientific...

The Great Recession and the financial crisis of 2007-09 prompted ca lls for fundamental reforms of economic theory. The role of theory in economics and in recent economic events is considered in light of two recen t books: the sociologist Richard Swedberg's The Art of Social Theory and the...