Description:
Addressing the controversial concept of the invisible hand, this book questions, examines and explicates the strengths and weaknesses of the concept by analyzing its paradigmatic examples such as Carl Menger's Origin of Money and Thomas Schelling's famous checkerboard model of residential segregation.
Review Quotes:
"This is a significant contribution to the philosophy of social science which will also engage the interest of reflective economic theorists."
Robert Sugden, University of East Anglia, UK
"The book is a candidate to become compulsory reading for methodologists and philosophers of science, as well as for those economists who take seriously the issue of their models' epistemological foundations."
Nicola Giocoli, University of Pisa, Italy
"This is a book that cannot fail to provoke thoughtful reactions from its readers about the potentialities of explanation in economics."
Mark Blaug, Erasmus University
Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics