ABSTRACT
The central aim of this book is to make a contribution to some of the debates on methodology which are currently a feature of the human sciences in general. This is to be achieved both by the presentation of general philosophical arguments and, more concretely, by taking the specific case of economics, widely held to be the most mature of the human sciences, and examining its methodological position. Before embarking upon this examination of economics it will be useful to outline in somewhat greater detail the two leading methodological positions in the debate to which I seek to make a contribution, namely the objectivist-behaviourist approach with its efficient causal mode of explanation and the subjectivist-interpretive approach with its teleological mode of explanation.
