ABSTRACT
Reading the work of Tony Lawson and the growing literature on critical realism and economics, I am impressed by the power of this “underlaboring” philosophy both to shed light on the methodological problems that beset contemporary mainstream economics and to help create the theoretical space in which we, as heterodox economists, can imagine and develop alternatives to the mainstream. At the same time, I am troubled by the particular way Lawson and other critical realists are endeavoring to fill that space.
