[U.S.] Daniel Hausman, ed.: The Philosophy of Economics

[U.S.] Daniel Hausman, ed., *The Philosophy of Economics*, translated by Ding Jianfeng, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, Century Publishing Group, January 2007, 38 yuan

This book is about the “methodology” of economics, or rather, an inquiry into how it can count as a “science.” It shows the profound connection between economics and the philosophy of science; in fact, as I was reading it, I would sometimes have the illusion that I was reading an introduction to the philosophy of science rather than an introduction to economics.

The introduction alone is almost a primer on the philosophy of science, including an overview of the entire line of development in the philosophy of science—from Hume, Kant, logical positivism, Popper, Lakatos, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and SSK—as well as a brief introduction to the important questions in the philosophy of science. Only at the end does it turn to a simple introduction to economics.

The main body is divided into five parts and includes twenty-one classic texts and cutting-edge discussions on related issues. In these discussions, one can also clearly see the thread of the philosophy of science, and several chapters specifically discuss issues related to the philosophy of science and their applications in economics. On the whole, this book can be seen both as a series of discussions on the methods and status of economics through the borrowing of the philosophy of science, and as a presentation of problems in the philosophy of science by using economics as a case study.

The philosophy of science, of course, should focus mainly on mathematics and the natural sciences, but it should not reject attention to the social sciences. In particular, psychology, which is least accepted as a “natural science,” and economics, which is most accepted as a “social science,” are both distinctive sciences of special significance for the philosophy of science, especially for questions such as the demarcation of science. Of course, the significance of economics for modernity is even more self-evident.

However, perhaps I simply know too little about economics; or perhaps my condition over these past two days has been poor; or perhaps the articles themselves, or the translation, are to blame. In reading many of the chapters in this book, I felt somewhat bored, skipped over more than half of them, and the gains were limited.

November 7, 2007

Translated from the Chinese original with AI assistance. The original text is authoritative.