The last decade witnessed an unprecedented annual growth of the literature dealing with the philosophy of economics, as well as the first signs of an institutionalization (conferences, an international journal) of the philosophy of economics as a scientific subject in itself - in particular in the U.S. In 1981 a meeting took place with participants mainly of European "continental" origin. In July 1987, we organized a second conference "Philosophy of Economics II" at Tilburg Uni versity, The Netherlands, mainly aiming at the establishment of first contacts between the middle-European group and...

This book has grown out of eight years of close collaboration among its authors. From the very beginning we decided that its content should come out as the result of a truly common effort. That is, we did not "distribute" parts of the text planned to each one of us. On the contrary, we made a point that each single paragraph be the product of a common reflection. Genuine team-work is not as usual in philosophy as it is in other academic disciplines. We think, however, that this is more due to the idiosyncrasy of philosophers than to the nature of their subject. Close collaboration with...

The papers in this volume were presented at the colloquium "Reduktion in der Wissenschaft: Struktur, Beispiele, philos- ophische PrObleme", held in Bielefeld, West Germany, July 18- 21, 1983. Altogether eighteen talks were delivered at the symposium, and all appear here with the exception of Professor Ehlers' address. In addition, we are pleased to be able to include three papers by invited participants (Kamiah, Ludwig, Scheibe) who were unable to attend the meeting. The meeting itself brought together a sizeable group of logicians, philosophers and working scientists to discuss and debate...

This volume consists of essays from a colloquium about "philosophy of economics" held at the.University of l1unich in July, 1981. They are contributions to an enterprise which in some respects is long-standing and in other respects is new. The long-standing enterprise is to somehow establish decision theory and its kindred disciplines as the basis of economic theory from which its other parts might be shown to follow. The new enterprise is to apply (some of) the latest methods of phi. losophy of science to economic theory. By "philosophy of science" we do not mean h: istory of science and the...

The papers in this volume were presented at the colloquium "Reduktion in der Wissenschaft: Struktur, Beispiele, philos- ophische PrObleme", held in Bielefeld, West Germany, July 18- 21, 1983. Altogether eighteen talks were delivered at the symposium, and all appear here with the exception of Professor Ehlers' address. In addition, we are pleased to be able to include three papers by invited participants (Kamiah, Ludwig, Scheibe) who were unable to attend the meeting. The meeting itself brought together a sizeable group of logicians, philosophers and working scientists to discuss and debate...

The last decade witnessed an unprecedented annual growth of the literature dealing with the philosophy of economics, as well as the first signs of an institutionalization (conferences, an international journal) of the philosophy of economics as a scientific subject in itself - in particular in the U.S. In 1981 a meeting took place with participants mainly of European "continental" origin. In July 1987, we organized a second conference "Philosophy of Economics II" at Tilburg Uni versity, The Netherlands, mainly aiming at the establishment of first contacts between the middle-European group and...