Contrast explanation in economics: its context, meaning, and potential

In this article we place Tony Lawson’s account of contrast explanation in context. Lawson’s development of it is given meaning both by the roots of the approach in his work on social ontology and the state of economics that provides the grounds for the critique contained in that social ontology. This is important because such an approach to explanation is not new. Most notably, van Fraassen and Garfinkel have developed it in particular ways and for particular purposes within the philosophy of science and social theory. Setting out the different ways in which the contrastive approach has been developed is useful for identifying what is different about Lawson’s approach, its potential and limits. Lawson’s proposal is more modest and focusses on causal investigation in a manner that flows from his approach to social ontology. Contrast explanation provides a substitute for controlled experiments and facilitates identifying social mechanisms. It also enables exploration of the manifold presuppositions of our explanatory questions. We argue that this is a useful and important contribution to overcoming some of the many problems economics faces.