Beyond Positivism

Bruce Caldwell is Research professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for the History of Political Economy, duke University, USA

• 1 Introduction PART ONE TWENTIETH CENTURY PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE 2 Logical Positivism 3 The Positivist Tradition Matures—The Emergence of Logical Empiricism 4 The Philosophical Attack on Logical Empiricism 5 Contemporary Philosophy of Science—The Growth of Knowledge Tradition PART TWO SOME ESSAYS ON POSITIVISM AND ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY 6 Robbins versus Hutchison—The Introduction of Positivism in Economic Methodology 7 Hutchison versus Machlup—On Indirect Testing and the Rationality Postulate 8 Friedman’s Methodological Instrumentalism 9 Samuelson—Operationalism, Descriptivism, and Explanation in Economics PART THREE PROVISIONAL ANSWERS TO SOME UNSETTLED QUESTIONS 10 Is Philosophy of Science Useful for Understanding Methodology 11 Prescription, Description, and Theory Appraisal 12 Confirmation and Falsificationism in Economics 13 A Program for Economic Methodologists—Methodological Pluralism