Beyond Deductivism

Abstract

The versions of positivism that are critically assessed in Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism bear two dominant sets of implications. One is that knowledge growth is monistic in nature; the other is that science has a specific deductivist structure. Caldwell focuses mainly on the former and its critics. I argue here that the second set of implications always did, and still does, perhaps more than ever, warrant critical attention.

Citation

Lawson, T. (2018), "Beyond Deductivism", Including a Symposium on Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism After 35 Years (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 36A), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-36. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0743-41542018000036A003