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Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on October 27, 2007
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2008 32(2):219-233; doi:10.1093/cje/bem034
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

Transforming economics into what? Heterodox economics and critical realism

Mark Peacock*

* Address for correspondence: The author would like to thank the Journal's referees. Throughout the text I refer to the book under review using page numbers only. mpeacock{at}yorku.ca

The volume under review consists of comments on critical realism by heterodox economists. This paper addresses a number of themes from the book, e.g., history and reflexivity, sometimes expanding on the authors' comments on critical realism, other times responding to them on behalf of critical realists. It considers the goals of critical realism and ask to what extent the book furthers them. It concludes that the high level of abstraction at which critical realism operates encourages those commenting on it to do so at a similarly high level of abstraction. As it stands, critical realism and the contributions to the book are too divorced from the concerns of concrete economic theorising to be of great use to practising heterodox economists.

Key Words: Critical realism • Methodology • Ontology • Heterodox economics

Reviewing: Paul Lewis (ed.) 2004. Transforming Economics: Perspectives on the Critical Realist Project. London and New York, Routledge.JEL classifications: A11, B40

Manuscript received July 31, 2006; final version received July 28, 2007.


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