The Philosophy of Economics

Part I. Classic Discussions: 1. On the definition and method of political economy John Stuart Mill; 2. Objectivity and understanding in economics Max Weber; 3. The nature and significance of economic science Lionel Robbins; 4. Economics and human action Frank Knight; 5. Philosophical foundations of economics: three texts Karl Marx; 6. The limitations of marginal utility Thorstein Veblen; Part II. Positivist and Popperian Views: 7. The methodology of positive economics Milton Friedman; 8. Testability and approximation Herbert Simon; 9. Why look under the hood? Daniel M. Hausman; 10. Popper and Lakatos in economic methodology D. Wade Hands; Part III. Ideology and Normative Economics: 11. Science and ideology Joseph Schumpeter; 12. Welfare propositions of economics and interpersonal comparisons of utility Nicholas Kaldor; 13. The philosophical foundations of mainstream normative economics Daniel M. Hausman and Michael S. McPherson; 14. Why is cost-benefit analysis so controversial? Robert Frank; 15. Capability and well-being Amartya Sen; Part IV. Branches and Schools of Economics and their Methodological Problems: 16. Econometrics as observation: the Lucas critique and the nature of econometric inference Kevin Hoover; 17. Does macroeconomics need microfoundations? Kevin Hoover; 18. Economics in the laboratory Vernon Smith; 19. Neuroeconomics: using neuroscience to make economic predictions Colin F. Camerer; 20. The market as a creative process James M. Buchanan and Viktor J. Vanberg; 21. What is the essence of institutional economics? Geoffrey Hodgson; Part V. New Directions in Economic Methodology: 22. The rhetoric of this economics Deirdre McCloskey; 23. Realism Uskali Mäki; 24. What has realism got to do with it? Tony Lawson; 25. Feminism and economics Julie Nelson; 26. Credible worlds: the status of theoretical models in economics Robert Sugden.