There is a discussion of Quine and Popper in _Hayek: a Collaborative Biography, Part One: Influences, from Mises to Bartley_. (Archival Insights into the Evolution of Economics Vol IV, chapter 9; Palgrave Macmillan).

RL

----- Original Message -----
From: "vatiero3" <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wednesday, 20 February, 2013 7:01:02 PM
Subject: Re: [SHOE] Retroduction / abduction in economics and elsewhere

Dear Ramzi (If I may),

If I understood your question, a case where abduction is used to explain
economic phenomenon is R. Coase (1937); see D. Bromley, Sufficient Reasons.

Regards, Massimiliano

Assitant Professor of Law and Economics
University of Lugano (CH) 

On Tue, 19 Feb 2013 23:40:07 +0200, Ramzi Mabsout <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
> Dear Altug
> 
> Maybe you understood my question as looking for case studies of
> Quine's underdetermination in economics? But I was --and still
> am--interested in case studies where abduction / retroduction is used
> to explain economic data or economic phenomena. In other words, what I
> am looking are case studies that describe/explain the construction of
> an economic theory through abduction / retroduction .
> 
> I wish to use this opportunity to thank all those who kindly sent me
> their feedback and inputs.
> 
> All the best,
> 
> Ramzi
> 
> On Tue, Feb 19, 2013 at 4:31 PM,
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> Menno Rol wrote: “The heart of the epistemology of Pierce can be
>> formulated as the claim that sticking to old
>> beliefs is a man's normal inclination and that this is in fact
>> rational.”
>>
>> I agree. However, Menno Rol also wrote: “In order to learn, we update
>> old beliefs with a certain unwillingness
>> in the face of counterevidence, facts that we stumble upon daily. The
>> updating process runs via hypothesis
>> making: inference to the best explanation. What counts as the best
>> explanation depends not only on the newly
>> encountered facts, but just as much - or even more - on our old beliefs.
>> Again, this is rational.”
>>
>> I disagree with Menno Rol here because scholars, who run into
>> counter-evidence or refuting reasoning, do not
>> always change their minds or update their beliefs. I think the reason is
>> that “epistemic costs” in scholarly
>> life are significantly high.
>>
>> Epistemic costs, to my understanding, refer to the costs involved in
>> operating the various scholarly
>> arrangements such as collecting data, drafting papers, arguing with
other
>> scholars, and replicating the results
>> of old models. Epistemic costs are sometimes so high that, for example,
>> errors that scholars made in the past
>> such as plagiarism and deterioration of data are not always remediable
>> today. As a consequence, scholars
>> sometimes keep reproducing erroneous models. There are at least two
>> reasons for this: (1) there is almost no
>> reward in the academy in going back to the models and explanations of
>> older generations and (2) it is sometimes
>> impossible to replicate what older generations wrote. This suggests that
>> the scholarly world is a world of
>> positive epistemic costs in which negative externalities are not always
>> and perfectly self-corrective. Perfect
>> solutions do not come about so easily because scholarly mechanisms, such
>> as refereeing and reviewing as well as
>> the ethics of scholarly behaviour and certain codes of act, including
the
>> issue of liability, that help increase
>> the productivity of scientific processes, cannot fully correct or cure
>> the harmful consequences of individual
>> scholarship. The problem of epistemic cost is that we do NOT “update
>> old beliefs” in the face of
>> counter-evidence and errors frequently remain uncorrected.
>>
>> Reminding the SHOE-List Ramzi Mabsout’s original question: would
>> anybody suggest any cases in which old habits
>> of thought prevent scholars from changing their minds despite the fact
>> that there is sufficient evidence to
>> abandon a refuted paradigm?
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Altug Yalcintas, Ankara University
>>
>> ---
>>
>>> Dear Menno Rol, It's been a long time since I read Pierce (or tried to
>>> read him), but the way you describe "the
>>> heart of the epistemology of Pierce" doesn't sound very different from
>>> common sense, Bayes, or  the recognition
>>> of the interplay of the algorithmic and the experiential in what we
>>> know.  (Algorithmic = what we know from
>>> logical deduction from "self-evident" first principles; experiential =
>>> what we know from intuition, authority,
>>> pretty much what you call "old beliefs.") I remember being taught (and
>>> believing) that Pierce was radically more
>>> than, and radically different from, a procedure for updating our
>>> knowledge in the light of new evidence.  Steve
>>> Marglin
>>>
>>> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>> Behalf Of M.E.G.M.Rol
>>> Sent: Friday, February 15, 2013 12:07 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Retroduction / abduction in economics and elsewhere
>>>
>>> [sorry for a broken off mail sent a minute ago.]
>>>
>>> The heart of the epistemology of Pierce can be formulated as the claim
>>> that sticking to old beliefs is a man's
>>> normal inclination and that this is in fact rational. In order to
learn,
>>> we update old beliefs with a certain
>>> unwillingness in the face of counterevidence, facts that we stumble
upon
>>> daily. The updating process runs via
>>> hypothesis making: inference to the best explanation. What counts as
the
>>> best explanation depends not only on
>>> the newly encountered facts, but just as much - or even more - on our
>>> old beliefs. Again, this is rational.
>>> Economics develops ever more into the direction of a science of
>>> information exchange - think of Levitt &
>>> Dubner's "Freakonmics", Constanze Binder's "Agency, Freedom and Choice"
>>> and Frydman & Goldberg's "Imperfect
>>> Knowledge Economics". If this is true, then it seems that Pierce's
>>> approach becomes ever more relevant for
>>> economists.
>>>
>>> For Mario Rizzo, as to the difficulty of his philosophy: for a good
>>> study of the relevance of Pierce in science
>>> in general, see:
>>> Atocha Aliseda (1997) "Seeking explanations", Dissertation Stanford,
>>> ILLC Dissertation Series, Amsterdam.
>>> Aliseda uses the basic ideas now for her research on diagnostic
>>> reasoning by medical staff.
>>>
>>> Menno Rol,
>>> Groningen, The Netherlands
>>>
>>>
>>> On 15-02-13,
>>>
[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
>>> wrote:
>>> Dear Ramzi Mabsout,
>>>
>>> You asked the SHOE-List about case studies on Peirce's abductive
>>> reasoning. The following publications on
>>> Peirce's philosophy in economics might be of interest to you, although
I
>>> am not quite sure to what extent they
>>> can be considered case studies:
>>>
>>> James Wible. 1998. The Economics of Science: Methodology and
>>> Epistemology as if Economics Really Mattered.
>>> Routledge. (See: Chapter 4. Also: check Index.)
>>> A. W. Dyer. 1986. "Veblen on Scientific Creativity: The Influence of
>>> Charles S. Peirce" Journal of Economic
>>> Issues 20(1)
>>> Altug Yalcintas. 2013. "The Problem of Epistemic Cost" American Journal
>>> of Economics and Sociology 72 (5)
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Altug Yalcintas, Ankara University
>>>
>>>
>>>> Dear colleagues,
>>>>
>>>> Would you be aware of any case studies (current or historical) or
>>>> concrete examples of Peirce's retroductive / abductive inferences in
>>>> economics (preferably) and the social sciences?
>>>>
>>>> I know Tony Lawson and Philip Mirowski discuss and offer some examples
>>>> but not much else.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you.
>>>>
>>>> All the best,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Ramzi Mabsout
>>>> Assistant professor
>>>> Economics department
>>>> American University of Beirut
>>>>
>>>
>>>