Roger Backhouse is a key figure in the field of economic methodology and this collection of his essays both clarifies and responds to the issues raised by recent literature that methodology is a fruitless exercise.

Chapter 1 Introduction; Part 1 Rethinking Lakatos; Chapter 2 The neo-Walrasian research programme in macroeconomics; Chapter 3 Lakatos and Economics; Chapter 4 Lakatosian perspectives on general equilibrium analysis; Chapter 5 The Lakatosian legacy in economic methodology; Part 2 Rhetoric and postmodernism in economics; Chapter 6 The hermeneutic challenge to economics; Chapter 7 Rhetoric and methodology; Chapter 8 A decade of rhetoric; Chapter 9 Should economists embrace postmodernism?; Part 3 Economists on methodology; Chapter 10 The value of Post Keynesian economics; Chapter 11 Should we ignore methodology?; Chapter 12 Economic laws and economic history; Chapter 13 Is there life in contemporary academic economics?; Chapter 14 Vision and progress in economic thought; Part 4 Pragmatism and empirical philosophy of science; Chapter 15 The fixation of economic beliefs; Chapter 16 An empirical philosophy of economic theory; Chapter 17 An ‘inexact’ philosophy of economics?; Chapter 18 Philosophical foundations of the social sciences;