Caldwell's Beyond Positivism was a key publication that helped to precipitate the consolidation of the methodology of economics into a distinct subfield within economics. Reconsidering it after thirty-five years, it is striking for its anti-naturalism (i.e., its lack of deference to the actual...

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...

In many sciences – physical, but also biology, neuroscience, and other life sciences – one object of reductionism is to purge intentionality from the fundamental basis of both explanations and the explanatory target. The scientifically relevant level – ontologically and epistemologically...

Situational analysis (also known as situational logic) was popularized by Karl Popper as an appropriate method for the interpretation of history and as a basis for a scientific social science. It seeks an objective positive explanation of behavior through imputing a dominant goal or motive to...