ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how pluralism articulates with conventional notions about what constitutes scientific practice, particularly inside the discipline of economics. Economic pluralism asserts that multiple approaches to economics are valid and useful in building up our understanding of economic and social reality. The central ontological commitment is whether one presupposes that economic and social reality is an open or a closed system. The simplest way to explain why pluralism is both necessary and desirable is to see it as an inescapable by-product of theory construction. Pluralism is also a corollary of the issue of historical specificity. Pluralism exists at a number of levels: method, theory, methodology, epistemology and ontology. Epistemological pluralism argues that there are multiple types of knowledge. A knowledge of other social sciences and also biophysical sciences, particularly psychology, is also beneficial. The chapter puts forward a case for pluralism in economics on intellectual grounds.
