Proceedings of the 5th Economic & Finance Conference, Miami

SOME REFLECTIONS ON METHODOLOGY OF CRITICAL REALISM

LUKAS MASLO, ZDENEK CHYTIL

Abstract:

The subject matter of this paper is the controversy about realism of assumptions from the perspective of critical realism. The authors apply the notional apparatus of philosophical logic to clarify the essence of this controversy. By means of translating the often ambivalent and sometimes mysterious terms of Jespersen (2009) into the straightforward language of classical philosophy, they authors make an effort to tear down some of the barriers of the inter-paradigmatic controversies about methodology. The conclusion is drawn that as long as the assumptions of a model affect but the accidentia logica of the model’s constituting notions, the formalist stand can be taken and Friedman’s instrumentalist approach will be justifiable; as soon as the assumptions of a model affect the differentiae specificae of the model’s constituting notions, the substantivist stand must be taken and Friedman’s instrumentalist approach fails. Finally, the authors assert that the Post-Keynesian notion of critical realism is much more compatible with the perception thereof as a genus that the perception thereof as a species.

Keywords: critical realism, differentia specifica, essentia generica, accidens logicum, ontology, epistemology

DOI: 10.20472/EFC.2016.005.016

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