Content

the study of “what is”
- wether some fundamental stuff exists
  - “Is there a god?”
- defined before empirical research
- a set of beliefs and assumptions
Which problem is central to the economy?
- scarcity
- change
- dominance
- uncertainty
From which “thing” should inquiry start if we want to acquire knowledge about the economy?
- micro: individuals and their motivations, relations and actions
- meso: groups and organisations
- macro: systems and structures (capitalism)
Do actors (people, firms, etc) exist independent of their context
- context … the world around them including all incentives
- Atomist: the actors exist independently
- Middle: they exist independently, but are influenced by their context
- Contextual: They cannot exist without their context. That would be fundamentally different
Time?
- Static: Time is a succession of states, which can be identified.
- Middle: Both static and procedural elements are present in time.
- Dynamic: It is of primary importance to think in a procedural way, things are constantly changing and evolving in time.

study of knowledge
What can we know and how can we arrive at knowledge?
- What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge?
- What are its sources?
- What is its structure, and what are its limits?
Is there a “real world” or just our interpretations of it?
- Realism: independent world of human conceptions we can observe
- Middle: real world but also discursive world (scientific access)
- Constructivist: our interpretations give the world meaning
Is the perspective with its mode of though focused on one object or applies in general terms?
- Perspective Driven: consistent thoughts throughout all objects
  - capable of yielding valuable insights in all kinds of economic and social phenomena
- Object Driven: a specific problem is analysed with different ways of thinking
- Contested: both tendencies are present, conflict when trying to move to just one perspective while others don’t

What counts as justified knowledge?
- set of rules or conditions for something to be scientific
Methods of research:
How does a perspective predominantly formulate its hypothesis?
- hypotheses … theory for explaining a phenomenon
- deductive: logically derived from another hypothesis
- inductive: empirical observations lead to new hypotheses
- middle: inductive and deductive mixed with axioms (following)
How can we generate and evaluate a theory or a hypothesis at the abstract level?
- formalistic: logical derivations from axioms, no logical mistakes
- broad reasoning: any other non-formalistic reasoning, less exact
  - counterfactuals, thought experiments, deconstruction, changing conceptualizations and fuzzy sets, heuristics, storytelling
- Middle: both formalistic and broad reasoning
How can we relate a theory or a hypothesis to reality?
- Standardised and prescriptive methodology: the scientific method
- Idiosyncratic: non-standard practices, depending on researcher and phenomenon studied
  - semi-structured interviews, genealogy, counterfactuals and discourse analysis
- Middle: both standardised and non-standard methods are used

Axioms
- not like hypotheses or theories → tested against empirical data
- more like heuristics → ideas/frameworks how to form hypotheses
derived from work of Imre Lakatos
- heuristics are preanalytic ‘hard core’ of a paradigm
- terminological expressions
  - not self-evident statements
  - codes and concepts employed within a perspective

Ideals: normative convictions describing ‘good’ things in economics
Policies: concrete measures that should bring the economy into a normatively better state

Statements and Opinions often include both ideals and policy suggenstions.

🪴 Maixnor WU