Social Ontology And Modern Economics

Economists increasingly recognise that engagement with social ontology – the study of the basic subject matter and constitution of social reality - can facilitate more relevant analysis. This growing recognition amongst economists of the importance of social ontology is due very considerably to the work of members of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. This volume brings together important papers by members of this group, some previously unpublished, in a collection that reveals the breadth and vitality of this Cambridge project. It provides a brilliant introduction to the central themes explored, perspectives sustained, insights achieved and how the project is moving forward. An initial set of papers examine how ontology is understood and justified within this Cambridge project and consider how it compares with prominent historical and contemporary alternatives. The majority of the included papers involve social ontological analysis being put to work directly in underlabouring for specific types of development in economics. The papers are grouped according to their contribution to clarifying and developing (i) various competing traditions and projects of modern economics, (ii) history of thought contributions, (iii) methodological concerns, (iv) ethics and (v) conceptions of particular aspects of social reality, including money, gender, technology and institutions. Background to and a brief history of the Cambridge group is provided in the Introduction. Social Ontology and Modern Economics will be of interest not only to economists but also philosophers of social science, social theorists and those eager to explore the nature of gender, social institutions and technology.

The social sciences often fail to examine in any systematic way the nature of their subject matter. Demonstrating that this is a central explanation of the widely acknowledged failings of the social sciences, not least of modern economics, this book sets about rectifying matters. Providing an account of the nature of social material in general, as well as of the specific natures of central components of the modern world, such as money and the corporation, Lawson also considers the implications of this theory regarding possibilities for social change. Readers will gain an understanding of how social phenomena, from tables and chairs, to money and firms, and nurses and Presidents are constituted. Fundamental to Lawson’s conception is a theory of community-based social positioning, whereby people and things within a community become constituted as components of emergent totalities, with actions governed by the rights and obligations of relevant members of the community. This theory isolates a set of basic principles that will offer the reader an understanding of the natures of all social phenomena. The Nature of Social Reality is for all those, academics and non-academics alike, who wish to gain a grasp on the nature of social phenomena that goes beyond the superficial.

This book addresses core questions about the nature and structure of contemporary capitalism and the social dynamics and countervailing forces that shape modern life. From a robust and self-consciously sociological framework, it analyzes and interrogates such issues as the nature of the social, the power of the sacred, the nature of authority, the problem of representation, reification, alienation, utopia, and collective resistance. Historical materialism reveals that the scope of productive functions is broader than the crude realism of economism. Marx’s critical theory of the commodity and his analysis of the capitalist regime of accumulation remain as vital as ever and serve as a guiding light for the continued exploration of the philosophical underpinnings of critical inquiry and praxis.

What do modern academic economists do? What currently is mainstream economics? What is neoclassical economics? And how about heterodox economics? How do the central concerns of modern economists, whatever their associations or allegiances, relate to those traditionally taken up in the discipline? And how did economics arrive at its current state? These and various cognate questions and concerns are systematically pursued in this new book by Tony Lawson. The result is a collection of previously published and new papers distinguished in providing the only comprehensive and coherent account of these issues currently available. The financial crisis has not only revealed weaknesses of the capitalist economy but also highlighted just how limited and impoverished is modern academic economics. Despite the failings of the latter being more widely acknowledged now than ever, there is still an enormous amount of confusion about their source and true nature. In this collection, Tony Lawson also identifies the causes of the discipline’s failings and outlines a transformative solution to its deficiencies. Amongst other things, Lawson advocates for the adoption of a more historical and philosophical orientation to the study of economics, one that deemphasizes the current focus on mathematical modelling while maintaining a high level of analytical rigour. In so doing Lawson argues for a return to long term systematic and sustained projects, in the manner pursued by the likes of Marx, Veblen, Hayek and Keynes, concerned first and foremost with advancing our understanding of social reality. Overall, this forceful and persuasive collection represents a major intervention in the on-going debates about the nature, state and future direction of economics.

This book examines the nature of economic objects that form the subject matter of economics, and studies how they resemble or differ from the objects studied by the natural sciences. It explores the question of whether economic objects created by modern economics sufficiently represent economic reality, and confronts the question whether tools, techniques and the methodology borrowed from the natural sciences are appropriate for the analysis of economic reality. It demonstrates the unsustainability of rational choice theory. It looks at economic agents, such as individuals, groups, legally constituted entities, algorithms, or robots, how they function and how they are represented in economics. The volume further examines the extent, if any, that mathematics can represent the objects of the economy, such as supply and demand, equilibrium, marginal utility, or the money supply as they actually occur in the economy, and as they are represented in economics. Finally, the volume explores whether the subject matter of economics – however defined – is the proper subject of theoretical knowledge, whether economics is an analytic or a descriptive discipline, or if it is more properly seen in the domain of practical reason. Specifically, the book looks at the importance and the ambiguity of the ontology of modern economics, temporality, reflexivity, the question of incommensurability, and their implications for economic policy.

Social ontology is the study of the nature and basic structure of social reality. It is a rapidly growing field at the intersection of philosophy and social science that has the potential to greatly assist social researchers of all kinds. One of the longest running projects in social ontology has developed over the better part of the last four decades through the work of Tony Lawson and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. Cambridge social ontology has its origins in an assessment that the widespread explanatory failure of modern mainstream economics, as well as in the social sciences more generally, is due to sustained ontological neglect and the resulting use of research methods that are inappropriate, given the nature of social material. The Cambridge project’s aim has been to rectify this neglect through conducting explicit and sustained inquiry into the nature of social material with a view to elaborating an explanatorily powerful conception of social ontology. The result is social positioning theory. This book is an introduction to the key features of social positioning theory, provides context as to the theory’s development and illustrates how social positioning theory can clarify the natures of phenomena such as gender and the corporation. Cambridge Social Ontology is for social scientists, philosophers and all readers interested in gaining a better understanding of the nature of social phenomena.

What do modern academic economists do? What currently is mainstream economics? What is neoclassical economics? And how about heterodox economics? How do the central concerns of modern economists, whatever their associations or allegiances, relate to those traditionally taken up in the discipline? And how did economics arrive at its current state? These and various cognate questions and concerns are systematically pursued in this new book by Tony Lawson. The result is a collection of previously published and new papers distinguished in providing the only comprehensive and coherent account of these issues currently available. The financial crisis has not only revealed weaknesses of the capitalist economy but also highlighted just how limited and impoverished is modern academic economics. Despite the failings of the latter being more widely acknowledged now than ever, there is still an enormous amount of confusion about their source and true nature. In this collection, Tony Lawson also identifies the causes of the discipline’s failings and outlines a transformative solution to its deficiencies. Amongst other things, Lawson advocates for the adoption of a more historical and philosophical orientation to the study of economics, one that deemphasizes the current focus on mathematical modelling while maintaining a high level of analytical rigour. In so doing Lawson argues for a return to long term systematic and sustained projects, in the manner pursued by the likes of Marx, Veblen, Hayek and Keynes, concerned first and foremost with advancing our understanding of social reality. Overall, this forceful and persuasive collection represents a major intervention in the on-going debates about the nature, state and future direction of economics.

Tony Lawson has become a major figure of intellectual controversy on the back of juxtaposing two relatively simple and seemingly innocuous ideas. He has argued firstly that success in science depends on finding and using methods, including modes of reasoning, appropriate to the nature of the phenomena being studied, and also that there are important differences between the nature of the objects of study of natural sciences and those of social science. This original book brings together some of the world's leading critics of economics orthodoxy to debate Lawson's contribution to the economics literature. The debate centres on ontology, which means enquiry into the nature of what exists, and in this collection scholars such as Bruce Caldwell, John B. Davis and Geoffrey M. Hodgson present their thoughtful criticisms of Lawson's work. Lawson himself presents his reactions to these criticisms, with full chapter replies to each of the scholars included. This book is particularly useful for students and researchers concerned primarily with methodology and future development of economics. It is also relevant to the concerns of philosophers of science and to all social scientists interested in methodological issues.