This paper outlines the development of Hayek's account of the working of decentralised economies, focusing in particular on his move away from using the notion of economic equilibrium towards an emphasis on the notion of 'order'

The discipline of economics can benefit a more explicit, systematic and sustained concern with ontology, that is, with the philosophical analysis of the nature of the social world. Contrary to the argument advanced in an article recently published in Critical Review (Steele 2005), the...

Historians of economic thought are paying greater attention to issues of social ontology (that is, to the assumptions that economists make about the nature of social reality). In this paper, we contribute to this burgeoning literature by exploring the hitherto neglected way in which James...

In a series of recent papers, the prominent Austrian economist Peter Boettke has criticised orthodox economics for its lack of realism. This paper situates Boettke's critique in the context provided by recent developments in the methodology of economics, most notably critical realism. While...