Geoff Hodgson on Pluralism and Historical Specificity

Citation

Dow SC (2019) Geoff Hodgson on Pluralism and Historical Specificity. In: Gagliardi F & Gindis D (eds.) Institutions and Evolution of Capitalism: Essays in Honour of Geoffrey M. Hodgson. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp. 14-28. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785365003

Abstract
Geoff Hodgson has made a variety of innovative contributions to thinking about the methodology of economics. Here two particular contributions are considered together: his advocacy of pluralism at different levels and his concern with historical specificity. We first explore his argument for specificity in terms of a pluralist ontology. We then consider his argument for methodological pluralism as contributing to an abductive methodology. We discuss this methodology as a basis for some generalities in theorising and discuss the potential further contribution that can be made by a pluralist ontology.

Keywords
pluralism; history; methodology

• 2019 Hodgson Paper Pre-publication