ABSTRACT
In recent years an increasing number of economists have come to appreciate the relevance of ontology to a social science such as economics. By this I mean that they have recognized the importance of investigating the nature of social material or social being, and of taking their findings on this into account in determining methods of analysis efficacious with respect to social phenomena. Theories of the nature and structure of the material domain of reality are usually designated forms of (ontological) realism. My concern here is with the fashioning of realist theories for economics.
