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Tony Lawson

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Tony Lawson is a British Philosopher and Economist. He is currently Professor of Economics and Philosophy in the Faculty of Economics at the University of Cambridge.[1]. He is a co-editor of the Cambridge Journal of Economics[2], a former director of the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies, and co-founder of the Cambridge Realist Workshop and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group[3]. Lawson is widely noted for his contributions to heterodox economics and social ontology.[4]

Work

Economics

Lawson's early contributions were in the field of post-Keynesian economics on the topics of uncertainty, knowledge and prediction [5][6][7]. Lawson's further work has focussed on realism[disambiguation needed] in economics, a critique of mainstream economics, analyses of feminist economics and heterodox economics, and, perhaps most importantly, introducing ontological reflection into methodological debates in economics[8][9][10][11][12][13]. Lawson argues that if social science is to be successful then it must use methods that are appropriate to its subject matter: social reality[14]. He argues that the problem with modern mainstream economics is that its general reliance on mathematical modelling is in most cases inappropriate for studying the social realm[14][15]. Therefore, he argues that if economics is to improve, it needs to reflect on the nature of its subject matter, by studying social ontology, and attempt to use methods that are appropriate to it[15]. Lawson advocates pluralism in economics[4][16]

Philosophy

As a result of his argument that economics should concern itself with ontology, Lawson has developed and defended his own description of how social reality exists, his own social ontology[3]. The main philosophical influence for this account is Critical Realism and specifically the work of Roy Bhaskar[17][18][19]. Indeed, in Lawson's early work he referred to, following Bhaskar, the account of social reality that he defended as "transcendental realism"[14]. Since 1997, however, Lawson has sought to distinguish his account from Bhaskar's and has developed his own social ontology, largely in collaboration with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group.

Lawson's Social Ontology

Lawson's description of social ontology can be categorised as a social constructivist account. He derives his account through transcendental argument.[14] He defines as social anything "whose formation/coming into existence and/or continuing existence necessarily depend at least in part upon human beings and their interactions”[3]. Lawson argues that there is a level of emergent – from human interaction – reality that is reasonably demarcated as social[20]. This comes about through processes of social morphogenesis[21]. This social realm is made up of social structure of which there different types such as communities, collective practices, norms, social rules, social positions, powers[disambiguation needed], social relations, and artefacts[13]. Lawson argues that the existence of all such entities, as they turn on human agency, are processual and dynamic[15]. Furthermore, he also identifies that social structure is the precondition for all human action. Therefore, Lawson's account argues that human agency and social structure presuppose each other and therefore neither is completely explicable in terms of the other. Social reality, Lawson argues, is emergent organisation in process[13].

Debate with John Searle

In recent years, Lawson's main interlocutor on issues of social ontology has been John Searle. Although their accounts of social reality are similar, there are important differences. Lawson places emphasis on the notion of social totality whereas Searle prefers to refer to institutional facts. Furthermore, Searle believes that emergence implies causal reduction whereas Lawson argues that social totalities cannot be completed explained by the causal powers of their components. Searle also places language at the foundation of the construction of social reality while Lawson believes that community formation necessarily precedes the development of language and therefore there must be the possibility for non-linguistic social structure formation[22][23][24]. The debate is ongoing and takes place additionally through regular meetings of the Centre for Social Ontology at the University of California, Berkeley and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group.[25]

Bibliography

Books

Articles

Secondary Sources

References

  1. ^ Administrator (2016-12-09). "Professor Tony Lawson". www.econ.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-10-11.
  2. ^ "Editorial_Board | Cambridge Journal of Economics | Oxford Academic". academic.oup.com. Retrieved 2017-10-11.
  3. ^ a b c Pratten, Stephen (2015). Social Ontology and Modern Economics. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415858304. OCLC 891449934.
  4. ^ a b Ontology and economics : Tony Lawson and his critics. Fullbrook, Edward. New York: Routledge. 2009. ISBN 0203888774. OCLC 227191562.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  5. ^ Lawson, Tony (1985). "Uncertainty and Economic Analysis". The Economic Journal. 95 (380): 909–927. doi:10.2307/2233256.
  6. ^ Lawson, Tony (1987). "The Relative/Absolute Nature of Knowledge and Economic Analysis". The Economic Journal. 97 (388): 951–970. doi:10.2307/2233082.
  7. ^ Lawson, Tony (1994-07-01). "The Nature of Post Keynesianism and Its Links to Other Traditions: A Realist Perspective". Journal of Post Keynesian Economics. 16 (4): 503–538. doi:10.1080/01603477.1994.11489998. ISSN 0160-3477.
  8. ^ Lawson, Tony (1999). "What Has Realism Got To Do With It?". Economics & Philosophy. 15 (2): 269–282. doi:10.1017/s0266267100004016. ISSN 1474-0028.
  9. ^ Lawson, Tony (2001). "The Varying Fortunes of the Project of Mathematising Economics". European Journal of Economic and Social Systems. 15: 241–268.
  10. ^ Lawson, Tony (1999-01-01). "Feminism, Realism, and Universalism". Feminist Economics. 5 (2): 25–59. doi:10.1080/135457099337932. ISSN 1354-5701.
  11. ^ Lawson, Tony (2003-01-01). "Ontology and Feminist Theorizing". Feminist Economics. 9 (1): 119–150. doi:10.1080/1354570022000035760. ISSN 1354-5701.
  12. ^ Lawson, Tony (2006-07-01). "The nature of heterodox economics". Cambridge Journal of Economics. 30 (4): 483–505. doi:10.1093/cje/bei093. ISSN 0309-166X.
  13. ^ a b c Lawson, Tony (2012-03-01). "Ontology and the study of social reality: emergence, organisation, community, power, social relations, corporations, artefacts and money". Cambridge Journal of Economics. 36 (2): 345–385. doi:10.1093/cje/ber050. ISSN 0309-166X.
  14. ^ a b c d Lawson, Tony (1997). Economics and reality. London: Routledge. ISBN 0415154200. OCLC 34545173.
  15. ^ a b c Lawson, Tony (2003). Reorienting economics. London: Routledge. ISBN 9780415253369. OCLC 810086031.
  16. ^ Economic pluralism. London and New York: Routledge. 2013. ISBN 0415747414. OCLC 859038420. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  17. ^ Bhaskar, Roy (1978). A realist theory of science. Hassocks, Sussex: Harvester Press. ISBN 0391005766. OCLC 4614842.
  18. ^ Bhaskar, Roy. The possibility of naturalism : a philosophical critique of the contemporary human sciences (Fourth edition ed.). London. ISBN 1138798886. OCLC 872522672. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
  19. ^ Lawson, Tony (1989-03-01). "Abstraction, tendencies and stylised facts: a realist approach to economic analysis". Cambridge Journal of Economics. 13 (1): 59–78. doi:10.1093/oxfordjournals.cje.a035091. ISSN 0309-166X.
  20. ^ Powers and capacities in philosophy : the new Aristotelianism. Groff, Ruth, 1963-, Greco, John. New York: Routledge. 2013. ISBN 9780415889889. OCLC 800035791.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  21. ^ Social morphogenesis. Archer, Margaret Scotford. Dordrecht: Springer. 2013. ISBN 9789400761285. OCLC 828794257.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  22. ^ Lawson, Tony (2016-12-01). "Comparing Conceptions of Social Ontology: Emergent Social Entities and/or Institutional Facts?". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 46 (4): 359–399. doi:10.1111/jtsb.12126. ISSN 1468-5914.
  23. ^ Searle, John R. (2016-12-01). "The Limits of Emergence: Reply to Tony Lawson". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 46 (4): 400–412. doi:10.1111/jtsb.12125. ISSN 1468-5914.
  24. ^ Lawson, Tony (2016-12-01). "Some Critical Issues in Social Ontology: Reply to John Searle". Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 46 (4): 426–437. doi:10.1111/jtsb.12129. ISSN 1468-5914.
  25. ^ "Workshop on Critical Issues in Social Ontology. — The Cambridge Social Ontology Group". www.csog.econ.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-10-11. {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |dead-url= (help)
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