ABSTRACT
Contemporary social theory (Archer 1995; Lawson 2003; Fleetwood & Ackroyd 2004) and philosophy of social science (Bhaskar 1979; Cartwright 1989; Maki 2001) make frequent reference to ontology, often stressing the central importance of ontic considerations in the construction and criticism of both theory and empirical approaches. This ‘ontological turn’ within the social sciences is a mixed bag, incorporating a number of different and occasionally conflicting points of view (for more detail on this see Chapter 4). This chapter will focus on one strand within ontologically orientated social theorising: critical realism. More specifically, I will focus on Tony Lawson’s contributions to the development of critical realism in economics in relation to similar developments in analytic philosophy.
