Modern Economics and Social Reality

Lists of figures

List of tables

About the editors

List of contributors

Tony Lawson: Criticism and curiosity in the pursuit of relevance

Ioana Negru, Stephen Pratten and Yannick Slade-Caffarel

1.      Commodification and Social Positioning

Mark S. Peacock

2.      Social Positioning Theory and the Nature of Gender

Bahar Araz and Yannick Slade-Caffarel

3.      Social Ontology and the Fiduciary: Under-labouring for the Relational Non-ideal

Helen Mussell

4.      When is a Photocopier not a Photocopier? Identity Problems in the Philosophy of Artefacts

Clive Lawson

5.      Law and Social Positioning Theory

Simon Deakin

6.       Taking Social Positioning Theory Further

Douglas V. Porpora

7.      Attending to Critical Ethical Naturalism: The Ethical Underpinnings of Economics and Reality and their importance for understanding Cambridge Social Ontology

Andonis Ragusis

8.      Capitalism through the lenses of social positioning theory and critical ethical naturalism

Nuno Ornelas Martins

9.      Give a Shit: Lawson on Critical Ethical Naturalism and Singer on Famine

Jamie Morgan

10.   Social Ontology and the Possibility of Emancipatory Social Change and Human Flourishing

Roy Rotheim

11.   Ontology, Epistemology and Standpoint: Tony Lawson on Feminist Economics

Sheila Dow

12.   Preconceptions of Original Institutional Economics: Tony Lawson’s contribution to a reconsideration of original institutional economics’ ontology and methodology

William Waller

13.   How Re-conceptualising the social world as an `Economic World´ contributes to unrealistic models

Steve Fleetwood

14.   Mathematics and Economics: Tony Lawson Re-considered

Josef Menšík

15.   Causation in Lawson’s Social Ontology

Heikki Patomäki

16.   A note on Economics and Reality and the teaching of the History of Economic Thought

Mário Graça Moura

Index

Biography

Ioana Negru is a Reader in Economics with Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu and she has extensive experience in teaching economics within United Kingdom and Romania.

Stephen Pratten is Professor of Economics and Philosophy, King’s Business School, King’s College London. He is co-executive editor of the Cambridge Journal of Economics and one of the founding members of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group.

Yannick Slade-Caffarel is Associate Professor at Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne University and a member of the Cambridge Social Ontology Group.

“Everyone seeking approaches to economics that are more relevant to our age of crises, dislocations and deepening inequalities should read this book. It explores and extends the implications of Tony Lawson’s concept of economies as rooted in social relations and offers hope in seeing individuals as capable of caring, trust and co-operation.”

Diane Elson, Emeritus Professor, University of Essex.

“Deploying the critical realist approach to social ontology as foundation, this collection offers original reflections on social positioning, critical ethical naturalism and feminist economics, alongside critique of mainstream economics and friendly engagement with heterodoxy and history of thought. As such it is a magnificently fitting acknowledgement of Tony Lawson’s continuing intellectual legacy – compulsive, compulsory reading.”

Ben Fine, Emeritus Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London.

“Published exactly 30 years after his seminal Economics and Reality (1997), this collection is a fitting tribute to Tony Lawson and the many contributions he has made over a long and enormously productive career. The chapters - almost all by economists, social theorists, and legal scholars affiliated with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group he continues to lead - explore the principal themes that have defined his work: economic methodology, the history of economic ideas and alternative schools of thought, ethical naturalism, social ontology, and especially social positioning theory. What is striking about these contributions is that they are so clearly part of a living conversation, and thereby as much a contribution to as a celebration of various facets of Lawson’s wide-ranging and influential intellectual programme.”

Jochen Runde, Professor of Economics and Organisation, University of Cambridge.

 “For decades, Tony Lawson has challenged mainstream economics’ notoriously complacent attitude to its philosophical and methodological foundations and its tenuous relation to real world economic processes. He has built up not only an alternative realist philosophy and social theory, but a community of researchers committed to building a soundly grounded understanding of economic reality. Here some of those scholars come together to honour this achievement and further the project through critiques and extensions of his work.”

Andrew Sayer, Emeritus Professor of Social Theory and Political Economy, Lancaster University.

“The play of curiosity and sustained critical reasoning - this book celebrates and interrogates their combination and embodiment in Tony Lawson's exemplary scholarship, from the critique of mathematical modelling, through the development of social positioning theory, to his advocacy of critical ethical naturalism.”

Hugh Willmott, Professor of Management, City University London.