In this paper, the author of How Economics Became a Mathematical Science (Duke University Press, 2002) responds to four papers (from Paul Davidson, Sheila Dow, Donald Katzner,and J. Barkley Rosser Jr.) written for a symposium on his book. In addition to specific responses to points raised by the...

Methodologist-philosopher Tony Lawson's distinction between the theoretic and the ontic is insufficient to untangle what he regards as a set of complex confusions concerning economists' use of the idea of equilibrium. His problem is better approached through a historical excavation of...