Bruce Caldwell (2004) “Hayek’s Challenge” tells the story of the evolution of Hayek’s methodological standpoint. In Caldwell’s account, Hayek is driven by the desire to identify a truly scientific approach to the study of society as a complex adaptive order which at the same time will...

This paper forms part of a research project investigating conceptions of the relationship between micro-level self-seeking agent behaviour and the desirability or otherwise of the resulting macro-level social outcomes in the history of economics. I identify two kinds of conservative rhetorical...

To understand the work of economic theorists it is often helpful to situate it in the context of the rhetorical strategy they were pursuing. Two ontologically distinct rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire may be distinguished by the way they articulate the individual interest with the general...

This book contends that post Keynesian economics has its own methodological and didactic basis, and its realistic analysis is much-needed in the current economic and financial crisis. At a time when the original message of Keynes’ General Theory is no longer present in most university...

In previous research, investigating economists’ conceptions of the relationship between micro-level self-seeking behaviour and the desirability of macro-level outcomes, I identified two rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire, characterised by reductionism, and by holism plus an invisible-hand...

This paper is prompted by the concluding comments to a recent paper (Denis “Hypostatisation”), which suggests that the neoclassical use of the concept of equilibrium expresses a formal mode of thought. Heterodox tendencies from Marxian to Austrian and Post Keynesian economics, that paper...

This Editorial introduces the special issue of IREE on pluralism in economics education. It draws out the pedagogical consequences of the contradiction between the plurality of the discipline and the singularity of student induction into it. Economics education should instead be based on...