Pablo Garcés-Velástegui - Ways of Knowing Agency and Development: notes on the philosophy of science and the conduct and use of inquiry

jpe:8873 - Journal of Philosophical Economics, April 25, 2023, Volume XVI - https://doi.org/10.46298/jpe.8873
Ways of Knowing Agency and Development: notes on the philosophy of science and the conduct and use of inquiryArticle

Authors: Pablo Garcés-Velástegui ORCID1

  • 1 Instituto de Altos Estudios Nacionales

Development is a value-laden concept and, as such, an essentially contested issue. To different extents, different ideas of development entail different assumptions about human agency. Although economics has been the most influential discipline, increasingly different accounts highlight distinct features of human beings and the contexts they inhabit, which lead to different implications. This article seeks to delineate the boundaries of the discussion and map out what are arguably the main alternatives within the field. Since such discussion deals with the question of what human action is, the argument is elaborated from the philosophy of science. Contra convention, the discussion uses a philosophical ontology, which is concerned with out connection to the world. Jackson’s heuristic is adopted to generate four philosophies of science and four notions of agency, regarded as ideal typical. Neopositivism advances a rational agent, reflexivity suggests a patient, critical realism furthers an interagent, and analyticism proposes a transagent. This article invites scholars and practitioners interested in this increasingly interdisciplinary area to raise their awareness regarding the foundations on which their ideas about human agency build and note the implications they have for the production and consumption of knowledge.


Volume: Volume XVI
Section: Articles
Published on: April 25, 2023
Accepted on: February 13, 2023
Submitted on: December 20, 2021
Keywords: Agency,Development,philosophy of science,Neopositivism,Reflexivity,Critical realism,Analyticism,[SHS]Humanities and Social Sciences

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