Back to Dan Hausman's Home Page 38 Philosophy of Economics Like many of the social sciences, economics grew out of philosophy, and the concerns of economists continue to intersect with those of philosophers. Philosophical reflections on (a) scientific method and social ontology, on (b) the nature of rationality, self-interest, and preference; and on (c) welfare, justice, equality, and freedom ...

Evolutionary Economics and the Counterfactual Threat Robin Cowan* and Dominique Foray** April, 1999. *MERIT, University of Maastricht, PB 616, 6200 MD Maastricht, The Netherlands. r.cowan@merit.unimaas.nl **IMRI, Universite Dauphine, 75775 Paris Cedex, France. dominique.foray@dauphine.fr Abstract Counterfactual conditional statements are ubiquitous in any scientific endeavour. This paper ...

The Genetic-Causal Tradition and Modern Economic Theory Robin Cowan and Mario J. Rizzo University of Western Ontario and New York University February 1996. Abstract This paper is an analysis of a specific tradition of causal thinking in economics: the genetic-causal tradition. This was most self-consciously developed in the work of the Austrian School, but spilled over into other approaches.