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This essay is a review of the recent literature on the methodology of economics, with a focus on three broad trends that have defined the core lines of research within the discipline during the last two decades. These trends are: (a) the philosophical analysis of economic modelling and economic explanation; (b) the epistemology of causal inference, evidence diversity and evidence-based policy and (c) the investigation of the methodological underpinnings and public policy implications of behavioural economics. The final output is inevitably not exhaustive, yet it aims at offering a fair taste of some of the most representative questions in the field on which many philosophers, methodologists and social scientists have recently been placing a great deal of intellectual effort. The topics and references compiled in this review should serve at least as safe introductions to some of the central research questions in the philosophy and methodology of economics.

The purpose of this paper is to draw a map of the general features of epistemological and critical concerns in contemporary Islamic philosophy. This study will not be confined to the domain of academic philosophy or to those who are professionals in the field of philosophy.

The paper adopted the critical rational approach in dealing with contemporary Islamic philosophy in the Arab world. The scope will include scholars from different fields of epistemology who tried to present a “vision” of the attitude that should be adopted in facing the challenges of the age and the problems of the nation on the epistemological level or the political, economic and social levels.

There is a need for a philosophy of action and progress rather than a philosophy that is based on abstract ideas and theories and of words/rhetoric. The ethics required to accomplish this ought to identify the attributes of the citizen who can reach self-actualization through legitimate means based on a progress agenda with theoretical and philosophical foundations.

Because a critical rational approach can be dealt with from different perspectives, this paper will adopt the classification of the principal intellectual trends: the reformist, secular and liberal.

This paper covers a long time span to determine whether the philosophical projects have been effective.

This paper, which criticizes the philosophic projects that are theoretically unsound and that do not address real social problems (like poverty), argues the need for a philosophy of progress and action. This will lead to devising an agenda that addresses the challenges the society is facing and to finding alternative and creative solutions resulting in development.

The purpose of this paper is to state new formulation of the programme‐styled framework of pansystems research and related expansions.

Pansystems‐generalized extremum principle (0**: (dy/dx=0)**) is presented with recognitions to various logoi of philosophy, mathematics, technology, systems, cybernetics, informatics, relativity, biology, society, resource, communications and related topics: logic, history, humanities, aesthetics, journalism, IT, AI, TGBZ* <truth*goodness*beauty*Zen*>, etc. including recent rediscoveries of 50 or so pansystems logoi.

A keynote of the paper is to develop the deep logoi of the analytic mathematics, analytic mechanics, variational principles, Hilbert's sixth/23rd problems, pan‐axiomatization to encyclopedic principles and various applications. The 0**‐universal connections embody the transfield internet‐styled academic tendency of pansystems exploration.

The paper includes topics: history megawave, pansystems sublation‐modes, pan‐metaphysics, pansystems dialogs with logoi of 100 thinkers or so, and pansystems‐sublation for a series of logoi concerning the substructure of encyclopedic dialogs such as systems, derivative, extremum, quantification, variational principle, equation, symmetry, OR, optimization, approximation, yinyang, combination, normality‐abnormality, framework, modeling, simulation, relativity, recognition, practice, methodology, mathematics, operations and transformations, quotientization, product, clustering, Banach completeness theorem, Weierstrass approximation theorem, Jackson approximation theorem, Taylor theorem, approximation transformation theorems due to Walsh‐Sewell mathematical school, Hilbert problems, Cauchy theorem, theorems of equation stability, function theory, logic, paradox, axiomatization, cybernetics, dialectics, multistep decision, computer, synergy, vitality and the basic logoi for history, ethics, economics, society OR, aesthetics, journalism, institution, resource and traffics, AI, IT, etc.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an experiment in a non-credit bearing series of social philosophy workshops offered to social science and humanities disciplines in an Australian university.

The paper outlines the design rationale and learning objectives for the workshop series. The data set includes qualitative student responses to 501 post-workshop questionnaires and 14 in-depth qualitative responses to a follow-up online questionnaire.

The data suggest that social philosophy methodology curriculum offered within a multi-discipline peer context can facilitate an appreciation among students of the centrality of theory and the value of diverse discipline approaches in research. The last part of the paper explores what underpins this – a kind of un-learning or uncertainty regarding the veracity of different philosophical approaches to research, tied to a de-centring of research subjectivity that allows for the co-existence of multiple voices. Language learning, the inclusion of post-modern perspectives and an unbiased presentation of a wide range of thinkers within a challenging intellectual context are central to this.

The emerging trend towards university-wide doctoral training offers opportunities for useful innovations in research education. University-wide social philosophy curriculum can play a role in facilitating constructive negotiation of theoretical complexity both within and across social science and humanities disciplines.

The contemporary social science and humanities research context is a challenging space, characterised by intra-discipline methodological plurality, and the risk of marginalisation by more dominant instrumentalist, end-user and science-driven perspectives. The trend towards bringing different methodological perspectives together within inter-disciplinary research and team supervision of doctoral students can lead to conceptual misunderstanding and research delays. The capacity to negotiate and translate conceptual perspectives, often within complex research relationships, has then become an increasingly important academic skill. Within this context, university-wide doctoral training has emerged, but there has been little discussion of doctoral curricula beyond that devised for professional doctorates within the discipline in the non-US higher education literature. This paper contributes to emerging scholarship on research education by describing the sorts of relational, textual and conceptual processes that might be created in the multi-discipline social science and humanities context to produce an appreciation for the different philosophical foundations of research knowledge.

The purpose of this paper is to present a general scientific methodology on tenets from Mario Bunge’s philosophy.

Systemic thinking and conceptual generalisation.

A general scientific methodology based on tenets from Mario Bunge’s philosophy of social science.

Using quantitative methods to conduct a research to test Asplunds motivation theory and North’s action theory.

How to conduct a research based on a systemic perspective.

An advantage of linking a systemic perspective to organisational psychology studies is that it may result in new ways of looking at old problems and bring new perspectives to the methods used. One explanation may be the fact that while researchers within various organisational psychology subject fields are largely specialists, the systemic perspective is oriented towards general scientific methodology.

The authors have not seen anybody who have tried to apply systemic thinking as a general methodology for research.

The purpose of this paper is to review and discuss Luciano Floridi’s 2019 book The Logic of Information: A Theory of Philosophy as Conceptual Design, the latest instalment in his philosophy of information (PI) tetralogy, particularly with respect to its implications for library and information studies (LIS).

Nine scholars with research interests in philosophy and LIS read and responded to the book, raising critical and heuristic questions in the spirit of scholarly dialogue. Floridi responded to these questions.

Floridi’s PI, including this latest publication, is of interest to LIS scholars, and much insight can be gained by exploring this connection. It seems also that LIS has the potential to contribute to PI’s further development in some respects.

Floridi’s PI work is technical philosophy for which many LIS scholars do not have the training or patience to engage with, yet doing so is rewarding. This suggests a role for translational work between philosophy and LIS.

The book symposium format, not yet seen in LIS, provides forum for sustained, multifaceted and generative dialogue around ideas.

One defining characteristic of service-learning as a pedagogical tool is its focus on reflection. Within service-learning programmes, students engage collaboratively with one another and community members, and are encouraged to reflect on the various aspects of their experience. The author argues that reflection is crucial for its contribution to service-learning, as a teaching methodology, and to service-learning’s cognitive, affective and social impact. Part of service-learning’s impact is its contribution to the development of inclusive attitudes and predispositions towards inclusiveness among school students and tertiary students, particularly pre-service teachers. The chapter recognises inclusivity as an element of quality teaching that helps students make connections with contexts outside the classroom, engage with different perspectives and ways of knowing and to accommodate all their peers and all those being offered service. The chapter recommends a particular approach to the expansion of thinking and practice that inclusivity requires, one based on the methodology of the Philosophy in Schools movement, which has its genesis in the work of John Dewey. That approach uses the mechanism of the Community of Inquiry to structure reflective activities in a way that facilitates the development of students’ critical and creative thinking and their capacity for substantive dialogue. Within the Community of Inquiry students are encouraged to engage with differing and perhaps novel perspectives as they respond to real-life service-learning experiences. Well-facilitated reflection gives students the opportunity to develop skills and dispositions conducive to deep understanding of concepts and issues that arise in discussion. It also helps to raise awareness of preconceptions and attitudes that can undermine inclusiveness in education. The chapter draws the conclusion that rigorous reflection serves as a stimulus to act to implement inclusive practices within service-learning projects on the basis of well-justified reasoning.

In 1978, Lewis Hill, in an instructive article in the Review of Social Economy, persuasively demonstrated that “the goals and objectives of social economies are completely compatible with the philosophy and methodology of institutionalism”. Consequently, he concludes, “both schools of economic thought could be strengthened by a synthesis which would merge the goals and objectives of social economics with the pragmatic philosophy and methodology of institutional economics”. Hill arrived at this conclusion by first summarising the goals and objectives of social economics and by distilling the work of Thorstein B. Veblen, John R. Commons, Wesley Clair Mitchell and Clarence E. Ayres, thereby setting forth the philosophy and methodology of institutional economics. Noting that the “four founding fathers of institutionalism constitute an extremely diverse group of scholars”, he observed that “the only feature which ties them together…was their common acceptance of pragmatism as the philosophical basis of their economic thought”. He then identified seven aspects of the effects of pragmatism on the philosophical foundation of institutionalism. He also described five characteristics that set social economists apart.

A comparative and critical examination of the methodology, goals and history of development of the field of Western social sciences in Islamic perspectives is presented. Economics is treated as a parallel case study in this respect. It is shown that the field of Western social sciences was the outcome of the revolt against the Church in the eighteenth century by the scholastic school to sever science from religion. Ever since, it has gained momentum also under the Cartesian philosophy of empiricism. Thus, the age‐long advance of the social sciences has shown increasing independence within each of its sub‐disciplines. An inward looking hegemony developed among the various sub‐disciplines. Such developments have made it increasingly difficult for the treatment of ethics and values as integrable elements in social investigation. The essence of a human analysis of social problems is thereby, misunderstood in modern social science analysis. The philosophy, nature and methodology of social investigation in Islamic framework are examined. It is argued that the Western concern with dichotomy between science and religion is not applicable to Islam. Consequently, there is a good possibility for studying social problems by an integrated approach among all the sub‐disciplines of the social sciences. This gives rise to an interdisciplinary study of social issues and problems and the development of a generalised social equilibrium system in the Islamic framework. We have developed one such comprehensive model endowed by its intrinsic Islamic ethics and values emanating fundamentally from the dynamic Quranic essence of the Unity of God in the working of the universe, “Al‐Tawhid”. The key principles and instruments are developed. The central role of the “shura” in functionally endowing the integrated study of social issues, is studied. In this context, the study of Islamic economics as one of Islamic political economy is examined. A specific economic problem in this area is explored. It is concluded that the approach of the Islamic social investigation and of Islamic political economy is what the future generation of social and economic thinkers will be working towards.

In 1982 my book Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century was published. At the 2017 History of Economics Society meeting, a session was held to mark the 35th anniversary of that event. Papers by Wade Hands, Kevin Hoover, Tony Lawson, and the trio Peter Boettke, Solomon Stein, and Virgil Storr were prepared. In this paper, I respond by reflecting on how I came to write Beyond Positivism and on the state of the field of economic methodology at the time, and then commenting briefly on each of the papers noted above.