ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall seek to document in more detail the methodological gap between the precept of a unity of method in the sciences, and of an efficient causal mode of explanation for human science and the practice of mainstream economics, which adopts a clear-cut teleological mode of explanation and is therefore radically distinct from the methods of natural science. I shall do this by examining the methodological precepts of a number of leading exponents of mainstream economics from the nineteenth century up to the present day and I shall show that, in their theorizing, the practice of these self-same economists has been directly at variance with their precepts.
