Search results

The purpose of this paper is to attempt to investigate the conceptual foundations of methodological inquiry in Islamic economics. The paper aims to develop criteria of acceptance and rejection of a theory and providing rationalizations and guidelines in the process of theory appraisal and evaluation.

The literature on Islamic economics especially in the area of methodology of Islamic economics, both in English and Arabic, is reviewed critically and used in the attempt of constructing the criteria of theory appraisal in Islamic economics.

The paper explicates two criteria of theory appraisal in Islamic economics, namely the internal‐integrity (doctrinal integrity, logical integrity and factual integrity) and relational‐unity (of doctrine and practical realities, ideals/goals and factual experiences, values and facts, normative and positive dimensions, a priori and a posteriori).

The paper is based on conceptual explorations of literature in the area of methodology of Islamic economics. This is a conceptual paper, so it did not employ any empirical analysis.

The findings of this paper will give insights of the criteria to distinguish truth over false notions in theories, between valid theories and invalid ones as well as the acceptance or rejection of theory in Islamic economics theory appraisal. With those criteria of theory, a unified discipline of Islamic economics, which is based on doctrinal, logical on testable foundations in a real typical Muslim society can be produced.

The paper proposes criteria and purpose of theory appraisal in Islamic economics which is lacking in the discussion of methodology of Islamic economics literature. Those criteria and purpose in theory appraisal and evaluation in a methodological unity of Islamic economics suggest a new approach in dealing with revelation, intellectual reasoning and facts observation in order to produce a coherent Islamic economic theory.

This paper attempts to investigate the conceptual foundations of methodological inquiry in Islamic economics. The paper aims to develop criteria of acceptance and rejection of a theory and providing rationalizations and guidelines in the process of theory appraisal and evaluation.

The literature on Islamic economics especially in the area of methodology of Islamic economics, both in English and Arabic, is reviewed critically and used in the attempt of constructing the criteria of theory appraisal in Islamic economics.

The paper explicates two criteria of theory appraisal in Islamic economics, namely the internal‐integrity (doctrinal integrity, logical integrity and factual integrity) and relational‐unity (of doctrine and practical realities, ideals/goals and factual experiences, values and facts, normative and positive dimensions, a priori and a posteriori).

The paper is based on conceptual explorations of literature in the area of methodology of Islamic economics. This is a conceptual paper, so it did not employ any empirical analysis.

The findings of this paper will give insights of the criteria to distinguish truth over false notions in theories, between valid theories and invalid ones as well as the acceptance or rejection of theory in Islamic economics theory appraisal. With those criteria of theory, a unified discipline of Islamic economics, which is based on doctrinal, logical on testable foundations in a real typical Muslim society can be produced.

The paper proposes criteria and purpose of theory appraisal in Islamic economics which is lacking in the discussion of methodology of Islamic economics literature. Those criteria and purpose in theory appraisal and evaluation in a methodological unity of Islamic economics suggest a new approach in dealing with revelation, intellectual reasoning and facts observation in order to produce a coherent Islamic economic theory.

The paper published below was prepared by Taylor Ostrander for Frank Knight’s course, Economic Theory, Economics 301, during the Fall 1933 quarter.

A discipline is bound by some combination of a shared subject matter, shared theory, and shared technique. Yet modern economics is seemingly without limit to its domain. As a discipline without a shared subject matter, what is the binding force of economics today? The authors combine topic modeling and text analysis to analyze different approaches to inquiry within the discipline of economics. The authors find that the importance of theory has declined as economics has increasingly become defined by its empirical techniques. The authors question whether this trajectory is stable in the long run as the binding force of the discipline.

The Coase theorem is associated with Stigler because Stigler coined the term. The object of this paper is to show that Stigler’s Coase theorem is Stiglerian for deeper – namely, methodological – reasons. We argue that, convinced as he was by the importance of Coase’s message, Stigler also believed that this message – such as presented in “The Federal Communications Commission” (1959) or “The Problem of Social Cost” (1962) – was not scientific. Hence, he had to transform it into a theorem to give it a scientific dimension. This is what we try to show by presenting Stigler’s methodology and by confronting it to the methodology used in Coase’s articles.

The paper aims to show that economic theory has become “desocialised” and separated from social theory through the adoption of individualistic methods and neglect of social relations and structures. It also seeks to assess the upshot of these trends, as well as the prospects for reversing them.

A historical overview traces how the social content of economic theory has diminished, considering the reasons why. This leads on to a wider evaluation of what desocialisation entails and whether economics could be done differently.

Desocialisation stems from the desire for boundaries between academic disciplines, which drove economics towards individualism and other social sciences towards structural methods. Such an artificial divide between economic theory and social theory is argued to be detrimental to all the disciplines concerned.

Restrictions imposed by desocialised theory have practical consequences for how we understand and model the economy. Some reforms that would loosen the restrictions so as to promote a resocialised economics are suggested.

The idea of desocialisation is defined and interpreted, drawing attention to the changing nature of economics, its isolation from other social sciences, and the possibilities for alternative modes of economic theorising.

Looks at the impact John Maynard Keynes and the movement (Keynesian) he started had on the theory and practice of economics in the 1930s and onwards. Identifies respective problems about capitalism and discusses them in depth. States that the monetary and fiscal policies recommended by Keynes have helped the West escape severe social consequences in the aftermath of the Great Depression. Goes on to show how economists after Keynes carried his work forward and upward in the 1940s and 1950s. Closes by stating there is a further, third revolution in economic thinking on the rise.

Emil Sax was an Austrian economist both in origin and theoretical background. He is often cited as one of the founders of modern theoretical public economics. An extensive account of his main ideas is given, along with some of the problems left unresolved in his theory.

This is the second part of a long investigation under the title of, Principia Oeconomica; the first having appeared in this journal in 1986. The substance of the argument in this contribution is in the form of a dialogue with Henri Guitton, member of l'Institut de France and author of a book in French, De l'Imperfection en Economie (1979). Guitton is leading a new French Economic School critical of a modern economy characterised by ‘Econosm” or “Economy of Counter‐sense”. Economism refers to the practice of conceiving problems of a modern society in strictly economic‐accounting terms and neglecting a host of social and human aspects. The second term means that the sole attention given to growth in production did not increase the happiness of man but on the contrary it created for him new problems (pollution, noise, atomic radiation and other hazards). To cope with these problems, the French school recommends wise policies which Guitton called “creative imperfection”. Guitton's presentation is followed step by step, with an interpretation in terms of stable equilibrium. The recommendation stresses structural reforms to solve the same problems but following a road of “creative perfection” leading to the same goal sought by Guitton: a better world of tomorrow.

The critical dimension and the one that can unify knowledge through systemic interrelationships, is unification of the purely a priori with the purely a posteriori parts of total reality into a congruous whole. This is a circular cause and effect interrelationship between premises. The emerging kind of world view may also be substantively called the epistemic‐ontic circular causation and continuity model of unified reality. The essence of this order is to ground philosophy of science in both the natural and social sciences, in a perpetually interactive and integrative mould of deriving, evolving and enhancing or revising change. Knowledge is then defined as the output of every such interaction. Interaction arises first from purely epistemological roots to form ontological reality. This is the passage from the a priori to the a posteriori realms in the traditions of Kant and Heidegger. Conversely, the passage from the a posteriori to a priori reality is the approach to knowledge in the natural sciences proferred by Cartesian meditations, David Hume, A.N. Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, as examples. Yet the continuity and renewal of knowledge by interaction and integration of these two premises are not rooted in the philosophy of western science. Husserl tried for it through his critique of western civilization and philosophical methods in the Crisis of Western Civilization. The unified field theory of Relativity‐Quantum physics is being tried for. A theory of everything has been imagined. Yet after all is done, scientific research program remains in a limbo. Unification of knowledge appears to be methodologically impossible in occidental philosophy of science.