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Rating: 
Summary: It's the handbook of methodology for undergraduate students
Review: It's a great book to introduce undergraduate students on economic method topics. Mark Blaug first provides an overall vision of philosophy of science, then comments the method of the economists of the XIXth and XXth century, and finally in the third part he shows the discussion on certain topics such as theory of the firm, human capital capital firm, etc, excellent to start a course-conclusion paper. It's great!
Rating: 
Summary: Time to move on from Lakatos
Review: The first edition of this book in 1980 established Blaug as a leading influence in this field, especially in his insistence on the importance of the testability or falsifiability of economic theories. The first part of the book is a clearly written introduction to the modern philosophy of science. Popper is identified as the pivotal figure between the old positivism and the new heterodoxy of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. Unfortunately he is still depicted as a "falsificationist" rather than a critical rationalist, a serious mistake in the first edition which might well have been corrected. Hands and Caldwell have subsequently made that step so perhaps Blaug will fix this in the second revised edition. Lakatos may have been the major influence in this matter of misunderstanding Popper, in any case the time has surely come to move on with the assistance of Popper's theory of metaphysical research programs (which are subjected to critical appraisal) rather than the theory of "untouchable" hard cores that was the legacy of Lakatos. Blaug may be ready to make a decisive step in this area. Recently, meditating on the outcome of the second Greek Islands conference on methodology, he wrote "I have come slowly and extremely reluctantly to the view that they [the Austrians] are right and that we have all been wrong [on Walrasian general equilibrium]". This concession to the Austrians is a major shift for Blaug and this may enable him to take the next step and perceive the overlap between the Austrian assumptions and the major elements of Popper's program. There include realism, non-determinism, the flux of time, methodological individualism and the uncertainty of knowledge The second part treats the history of economic methodology. This provides an opportunity to rubbish the modern Austrians for their a priori heuristic postulates (this is the old, or rather the younger, Blaug speaking). There is a chapter on falsificationism, and various other "isms" including operationalism, Friedman's instrumentalism and Samuelson's descriptivism. Unfortunately the treatment of instrumentalism and descriptivism (or conventionalism) falls far short of that which is offered in Boland's The Foundations of Economic Method (1982) The heart and soul of the book should be the third part which is a methodological appraisal of various aspects of the neoclassical research program. As C Wright Mills pointed out, discussion of methodology in isolation from actual work in progress is unlikely to be fruitful, so this part of the book should stand as a test (a possible falsification) of the value of Blaug's methodological apparatus. It might have been even more helpful to include two of his own special areas of interest - education and the arts, in this section, but perhaps this work is not a part of the neoclassical research program. The fourth part is a short commentary on what we have now learned about economics with advice on falsificationism, applied econometrics and the best way forward.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic and a Benchmark
Review: This old and very short book on methodology enables novices to enter a philosophocal debate that is fragmented and decentralised. The book uses simple language and tries to educate not impress. Together with Alan Chalmers Mark Blaug is the best starting point for any student. However, it stops in the 1980s and therefore cuts off the debate at a critical point of time.
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