REFLECTION WITHOUT RULESHANDS’

Abstract

Review essay on Wade Hands’, Reflection without Rules: Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Wade Hands’ Reflection without Rules is the best book in town for the student who wants to get acquainted with the field of economic methodology. Just like Mark Blaug’s The Methodology of Economics and Bruce Caldwell’s Beyond Positivism during the 1980s and the 1990s, Reflection introduces the reader to the debate in the area, in all its complexity and with many of its details, yet in a clear and logical manner. The book reproduces portions of the author’s earlier articles published since 1985 in different periodicals and books. Hands successfully achieves his goal of building a survey of recent developments in the field of economic methodology in a book that can be praised for its comprehensive outlook; its wide array of subject-matters; successful incursions into the neighboring fields of epistemology, philosophy, rhetoric, sociology of knowledge and others; its clear discussion of relevant topics, following a logical order; and its full coverage of the available literature, with the impressive reference list of more than 1,200 entries.

Citation

Bianchi, A.M. (2004), " REFLECTION WITHOUT RULESHANDS’", Samuels, W.J. (Ed.) A Research Annual (Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, Vol. 22 Part 1), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 341-346. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0743-4154(03)22020-4