Realism, underlabouring and institutions
认为批判实在论能帮助经济方法论超越实证主义局限，并论证局限于描述的经济方法论和坚持方法论个人主义的制度主义既无必要也有问题。
Despite recent advances, economic methodology has found it difficult to transcend certain positivist premisses and concerns. We argue that developments in philosophy and social theory under the heading of critical realism are particularly significant with respect to overcoming these problems. To illustrate, we focus upon various themes that arise in a recent collection concerned with economic methodology and institutionalist economics, relating these themes to relevant aspects of this realist position. In so doing, we argue that an economic methodology restricted to description and an institutionalism committed to some form of methodological individualism are not only unnecessary but problematic. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited