Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Philosophy and Economics

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics

  • 211 Accesses

Abstract

The literature on philosophy and economics has traditionally been divided into two areas: economic methodology, which connects economics and epistemology/philosophy of science, and the literature on economics and moral philosophy/ethics. Recent developments in both of these areas are discussed in detail.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 6,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 8,499.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Backhouse, R. 1997. Explorations in economic methodology: From lakatos to empirical philosophy of science. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaug, M. 1980. The methodology of economics: Or how economists explain. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1992.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blaug, M., and N. De Marchi, eds. 1991. Appraising economic theories: Studies in the methodology of scientific research programs. Aldershot: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Boland, L. 1997. Critical economic methodology: A personal odyssey. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell, B. 1991. Clarifying Popper. Journal of Economic Literature 29: 1–33.

    Google Scholar 

  • Caldwell, B. 1994. Beyond positivism: Economic methodology in the twentieth century. 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Cartwright, N. 1989. Nature’s capacities and their measurement. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cooter, R., and P. Rappoport. 1984. Were the cardinalists wrong about welfare economics? Journal of Economic Literature 22: 507–530.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dasgupta, P., and P. David. 1994. Toward a new economics of science. Research Policy 23: 487–521.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Davidson, D. 2001. Essays on actions and events. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Davis, J. 2003. The theory of the individual in economics. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Ferber, M., and J. Nelson. 2003. Feminist economics today: Beyond economic man. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey, B., and A. Stutzer. 2002. What can economists learn from happiness research? Journal of Economic Literature 40: 402–435.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Milton. 1953. The methodology of positive economics. In Essays in positive economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Friedman, Michael. 1999. Reconsidering logical positivism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Giocoli, N. 2003. Modeling rational agents: From interwar economics to early modern game theory. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

    Google Scholar 

  • Glimcher, P. 2003. Decisions, uncertainty, and the brain: The science of neuroeconomics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A. 1995. Simulation and interpersonal utility. Ethics 105: 709–726.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Goldman, A., and M. Shaked. 1991. An economic model of scientific activity and truth acquisition. Philosophical Studies 63: 31–55.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guala, F. 2005. The methodology of experimental economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hands, D. 1993. Testing, rationality, and progress: Essays on the Popperian tradition in economic methodology. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hands, D. 1997. Caveat emptor: Economics and contemporary philosophy of science. Philosophy of Science 64: S107–S116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hands, D. 2001. Reflection without rules: Economic methodology and contemporary science theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Harsanyi, J. 1955. Cardinal welfare, individualistic ethics and interpersonal comparisons of utility. Journal of Political Economy 63: 309–321.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Harsanyi, J. 1982. Morality and the theory of rational behaviour. In Utilitarianism and beyond, ed. A. Sen and B. Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hausman, D. 1988. An appraisal of Popperian economic methodology. In The Popperian legacy in economics, ed. N. De Marchi. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hausman, D. 1992. The inexact and separate science of economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hausman, D., and M. McPherson. 2006. Economic analysis, moral philosophy, and public policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hoover, K. 2001. Causality in macroeconomics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hutchison, T. 1938. The significance and basic postulates of economic theory. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Isaac, J., J. Walker, and S. Thomas. 1984. Divergent evidence on free-riding: An experimental examination of possible explanations. Public Choice 43: 113–149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. 1994. New challenges to the rationality assumption. Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 150: 18–36.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D. 1999. Objective happiness. In Well-being: The foundations of hedonic psychology, ed. D. Kahneman, E. Diener, and N. Schwarz. New York: Russell Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., and A. Tversky, eds. 2000. Choices, values, and frames. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kahneman, D., P. Wakker, and R. Sarin. 1997. Back to Bentham? Explorations of experienced utility. Quarterly Journal of Economics 112: 374–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kitcher, P. 1993. The advancement of science: science without legend, objectivity without illusions. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Klappholz, K., and J. Agassi. 1959. Methodological prescriptions in economics. Economica 26: 60–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lakatos, I. 1970. Falsification and the methodology of scientific research programmes. In Criticism and the growth of knowledge, ed. I. Lakatos and A. Musgrave. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Latsis, S., ed. 1976. Method and appraisal in economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lawson, T. 2003. Reorienting economics. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Little, I. 1957. A critique of welfare economics. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maki, U., ed. 2001. The economic world view: Studies in the ontology of economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mandler, M. 1999. Dilemmas in economic theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • McCloskey, D. 1998. The rhetoric of economics. 2nd ed. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mirowski, P. 2002. Machine dreams: Economics becomes a cyborg science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mirowski, P. 2004. The scientific dimensions of social knowledge and their distant echoes in 20th-century American philosophy of science. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35: 283–326.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mirowski, P., and E.-M. Sent, eds. 2002. Science bought and sold. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mongin, P. 2006. Value judgments and value neutrality in economics. Economica 73: 257–286.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, M. 1999. Learning from models. In Models as mediators, ed. M. Morgan and M. Morrison. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, M. 2001. Models, stories and the economic world. Journal of Economic Methodology 8: 361–384.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Nelson, J. 1996. Feminism, objectivity and economics. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nussbaum, M. 2000. Women in human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pigou, A. 1920. The economics of welfare. 1st ed. London: Macmillan.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. 1965. Conjectures and refutations. 2nd ed. New York: Harper and Row.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. 1968. The logic of scientific discovery. 2nd ed. New York: Basic Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Popper, K. 1994. Models, instruments, and truth: the status of the rationality principle in the social sciences. In The myth of the framework: In defense of science and rationality. London: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Putnam, H. 2002. The collapse of the fact/value dichotomy and other essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rawls, J. 1971. A theory of justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robbins, L. 1952. An essay on the nature & significance of economic science. 2nd ed. London: Macmillan. (2nd edn first published in 1935).

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, D. 1952. Utility and all that and other essays. London: Allen and Unwin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robson, A. 2001. Why would nature give individuals utility functions? Journal of Political Economy 109: 900–914.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosenberg, A. 1992. Economics – Mathematical politics or science of diminishing returns? Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ross, D. 2005. Economic theory and cognitive science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ruccio, D., and J. Amariglio. 2003. Postmodern moments in modern economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Samuelson, P. 1963. Problems of methodology – Discussion. American Economic Review 53: 231–236.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. 2001. Rationality in action. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. 1977. Rational fools: A critique of the behavioral foundations of economic theory. Philosophy and Public Affairs 6: 317–344.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. 1985. Commodities and capabilities: The professor Dr. P Hennipman lectures in economics. Vol. 7. Amsterdam: Elsevier Publishing.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sen, A. 2002. Rationality and freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sent, E.-M. 1998. The evolving rationality of rational expectations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Singer, T., and E. Fehr. 2005. The neuroeconomics of mind reading and empathy. American Economic Review 95: 340–345.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weintraub, E. 2002. How economics became a mathematical science. Durham: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Wible, J. 1998. The economics of science: Methodology and epistemology as if economics really mattered. London: Routledge.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Yonay, Y. 1998. The struggle for the soul of economics. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. http://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5

    D. Wade Hands

Authors
  1. D. Wade Hands
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Copyright information

© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.

About this entry

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this entry

Hands, D.W. (2018). Philosophy and Economics. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_1622

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation