Karl Mittermaier, Adam Smith, and Economic Methodology: A Comment on 'The Invisible Hand and Some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study'

Schumacher, Reinhard and Melissa Vegara-Fernández (2019): "Karl Mittermaier, Adam Smith, and Economic Methodology: »A Comment on The Invisible Hand and Some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study«," Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, Vol. 139(1),

14 Pages Posted: 12 Mar 2021

See all articles by Reinhard Schumacher

Reinhard Schumacher

University of Siegen

Melissa Vergara-Fernández

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE)

Date Written: 2019

Abstract

This article is a comment on Karl Mittermaier’s article The Invisible Hand and Some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study, written in the early 1990s, but published only now. In this article, Mittermaier attempts to make two contributions. First, he provides a novel interpretation of Adam Smith’s well-known expression of the invisible hand, thereby highlighting a rather neglected method in Smith’s works. He uses this interpretation to introduce a methodological argument that “fictions may play a vital, or even essential, role in economic analysis”, touching on Roy Bhaskar’s New Realism, or Critical Realism, as it would be described today, as well as on Austrian Economics. This is his second contribution. We discuss both contributions, especially in the light of newer scholarship on Adam Smith and in the Philosophy of Economics.

Keywords: Adam Smith, Karl Mittermaier, Invisible Hand, Roy Bhaskar, Philosophy of Economics, Economic Methodology, Austrian Economics

Suggested Citation

Schumacher, Reinhard and Vergara Fernández, Melissa, Karl Mittermaier, Adam Smith, and Economic Methodology: A Comment on 'The Invisible Hand and Some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study' (2019). Schumacher, Reinhard and Melissa Vegara-Fernández (2019): "Karl Mittermaier, Adam Smith, and Economic Methodology: »A Comment on The Invisible Hand and Some Thoughts on the Non-Existent in What We Study«," Journal of Contextual Economics – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, Vol. 139(1),, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3771218

Reinhard Schumacher (Contact Author)

University of Siegen ( email )

Melissa Vergara Fernández

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) - Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics (EIPE) ( email )

P.O. Box 1738
EIPE Office, Room H5-23
3000 Dr Rotterdam
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://www.mvergarafernandez.nl

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
109
Abstract Views
721
Rank
535,813
PlumX Metrics