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Tony Lawson is a British
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
and
economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this field there are ...
. He is professor of economics and philosophy in the Faculty of Economics at the
University of Cambridge , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. He is a co-editor of the ''
Cambridge Journal of Economics The ''Cambridge Journal of Economics'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics. The journal was founded in 1977 by the ''Cambridge Political Economy Society'' with the aim of publishing articles that followed the economic traditions est ...
'', a former director of the University of Cambridge Centre for
Gender Studies Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation. Gender studies originated in the field of women's studies, concerning women, feminism, gender, and politics. The field n ...
, and co-founder of the Cambridge Realist Workshop and the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. Lawson is noted for his contributions to
heterodox economics Heterodox economics is any economic thought or theory that contrasts with orthodox schools of economic thought, or that may be beyond neoclassical economics.Frederic S. Lee, 2008. "heterodox economics," ''The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics' ...
and to philosophical issues in social theorising, most especially to
social ontology Social ontology is a domain-specific branch of ontology (philosophy) which studies the nature and properties of the social world. Social ontology deals with examining the various entities in the world arising from social interaction. Notable conte ...
.


Work


Economics

Lawson's early contributions were on philosophical topics such as uncertainty, knowledge and prediction as well as on substantive analyses of the labour process and the
industrial decline Deindustrialization is a process of social and economic change caused by the removal or reduction of industrial capacity or activity in a country or region, especially of heavy industry or manufacturing industry. There are different interpre ...
of the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and Nor ...
. Lawson's further work has focussed on achieving greater relevance in social theorising, especially economics. This has involved developing an ontologically informed critique of mainstream economics and elaborating methods more relevant to social analysis. Perhaps most importantly, Lawson has introduced ontological reflection into all aspects of economic discussion, including
methodology In its most common sense, methodology is the study of research methods. However, the term can also refer to the methods themselves or to the philosophical discussion of associated background assumptions. A method is a structured procedure for bri ...
, basic theory and
history of economic thought History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
. Lawson argues repeatedly that if social science is to be successful then it must fashion methods that are appropriate to its subject matter. He argues that this requires an explicit orientation to social ontology. The reason that
mathematical modelling A mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used in the natural sciences (such as physics, b ...
in economics fails to provide insight, he reasons, is simply because such methods are quite inappropriate, given the nature of social material. Lawson develops dialectical methods that he systematises as contrast explanation. More basically Lawson advocates pluralism in method for modern economics.


Philosophy

As a result of his argument that economics should concern itself with
ontology In metaphysics, ontology is the philosophical study of being, as well as related concepts such as existence, becoming, and reality. Ontology addresses questions like how entities are grouped into categories and which of these entities ex ...
, Lawson has developed and defended his own theory of the constitution and nature of social reality. The main philosophical influence for this is the Cambridge Social Ontology Group. An early influence was the work of Roy Bhaskar. Indeed, in his early work, Lawson joined Bhaskar and others in referring to the account of social reality defended as "
transcendental realism Initially developed by Roy Bhaskar in his book ''A Realist Theory of Science'' (1975), transcendental realism is a philosophy of science that was initially developed as an argument against epistemic realism of positivism and hermeneutics. The pos ...
". Since 1997, however, Lawson has developed his own conception of social ontology, largely in collaboration with the Cambridge Social Ontology Group, and refers to it as social positioning theory.


Social ontology

Lawson's conception of social ontology has been in part derived through transcendental argument. He defines as social anything "whose formation/coming into existence and/or continuing existence ''necessarily'' depend at least in part upon human beings and their interactions”. Lawson argues that there is a level of emergent – from human interaction – reality that is reasonably demarcated as social. This comes about through processes of social
morphogenesis Morphogenesis (from the Greek ''morphê'' shape and ''genesis'' creation, literally "the generation of form") is the biological process that causes a cell, tissue or organism to develop its shape. It is one of three fundamental aspects of devel ...
. In general, Lawson argues, “we human beings for the most part do ''not create'' social reality, but rather, on finding it given to us at each moment, each draw upon it in acting in always situated ways, pursuing our particular situated concerns, in conditions clearly not of our own making, with understandings that are always fallible and extremely partial at best, and in so doing thereby contribute, along with the simultaneous actions of all others, to the continuous reproduction and transformation of social reality in a manner that is mostly unintended and poorly understood”. The result is a world in which
human agency Agency is the capacity of an actor to act in a given environment. It is independent of the moral dimension, which is called moral agency. In ''sociology'', an agent is an individual engaging with the social structure. Notably, though, the prima ...
and
social structure In the social sciences, social structure is the aggregate of patterned social arrangements in society that are both emergent from and determinant of the actions of individuals. Likewise, society is believed to be grouped into structurally rel ...
each presuppose the other though neither is reducible to, or completely explicable in terms of, the other. More specifically, Lawson argues that social reality is everywhere constituted through positioning people and things as components of social totalities, whereupon human actions and uses of positioned objects are guided by rights and obligations associated with the positions. Whole
communities A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...
can also be so positioned, as in the formation of corporations. The result is a social realm organised by various forms of social structure of which there different types such as communities, collective practices, norms, social rules, social positions, powers, social relations, and artefacts.


Ethics

Lawson defends a conception of
ethics Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns m ...
named Critical Ethical Naturalism in which the goal is a society in which we all flourish in our differences, and the mechanism ever nudging us towards it turns on the fact that the flourishing of any one of us depends on the flourishing of all and at some level we all recognise this.


Debates

Lawson has engaged in debates with numerous contributors, including, early on, over the use of econometrics, and later, regarding the value of ontology to social theorising, including to feminist theorising. In addition, Edward Fullbrook’s ''Ontology and Economics: Tony Lawson and his Critics'', contains a series of debates between Lawson and leading heterodox economists. Recently Lawson has debated the relative advantages of competing conceptions of social ontology with several ontologists such as
John Searle John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959, and was Willis S. and Mario ...
, Doug Porpora and Colin Wight. Moreover, he has debated the nature of specific social existents, such as money, with Searle and Geoffrey Ingham.


Bibliography


Books (single author)

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Selected articles

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Secondary sources

* * * "Cambridge social ontology, the philosophical critique of modern economics and social positioning theory: an interview with Tony Lawson, part 1". ''Journal of Critical Realism''. 20:1, 72-97. 2021. * "Cambridge social ontology, the philosophical critique of modern economics and social positioning theory: an interview with Tony Lawson, part 2". ''Journal of Critical Realism''. 20:2, 201-237. 2021.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lawson, Tony British economists Year of birth missing (living people) Living people