Published in the Atlantic Economics Journal, Vol 26, December 1998, pp. 431-440.
SHIFTING THE MAINSTREAM: LAWSON'S IMPETUS
Economics and Reality
Tony Lawson
Routledge, 1997, 364 pp.
Review Article by
Edward Fullbrook
Lawson's Economics and Reality is a deeply informed attempt to liberate economics from its
metaphysical presuppositions, usually tacit, inherited from Newtonian physics and Enlightenment
epistemology. Lawson fears that the economics profession faces declining prosperity due to its
decreasing public credibility and to the increasing annexation of its traditional ground of inquiry by
other disciplines. Lawson's book attempts to revamp economic methodology so as to reverse these
trends. This article examines the recent philosophical ideas (especially the Critical Realism of Roy
Bhaskar) informing Lawson's project; considers Lawson's critique of contemporary economics; and
relates his ideas for reform to those of other economists. [B00, C10, D00, D12]
1. Introduction
It is no easy matter to date the end of the bull market for economics that began after World War
Two. The erosion of faith in economics, both among ourselves as economists and our public,
has been slow but persistent and long-term. What has changed in the 1990s is that it has
become polite to talk about it. Discussions and pronouncements of doubt and disillusionment
that would have been unthinkable or career-destroying only a few years ago have become
commonplace at economic conferences [Pfouts, 1997; Roth, 1997]. Important mainstream
economic journals, including this one, now as a matter of course feature articles, often by
patrician figures, declaring agnosticism regarding fundamentals and pleading for serious reform
[Baumol, 1991; Hahn, 1991; Wiseman, 1991; Klein, 1994; Caravale, 1995]. But these efforts,
brave and often penetrating, lack--and their authors would probably agree--the weight and thrust
of critical vision needed to overcome the mainstream's notorious inertia. Economics and
Reality by Tony Lawson (University of Cambridge) takes as its immodest goal the provision of
this impetus.
Lawson points to his own intellectual history--as a mathematician turned economist--as leading
to his book's insights. Entering economics, he says,
I was immediately impressed by, as I saw it, the widespread and rather uncritical
application of formalistic methods and systems to conditions for which they
were obviously quite unsuited. In consequence, my interests turned fairly
quickly to questions of ontology, and specifically to the study of how methods
and modes of reasoning might be fashioned to insights concerning the nature of
social being [p. xiii].
That word "ontology"--whose meaning is central to Lawson's project--drops us into relatively
strange waters. For Anglo-Saxon philosophy and for the sciences following from it, ontology
has been off-limits since the Enlightenment. From Locke onwards ontology's central question-What basic kinds of being exist?--was treated as closed, leaving Positivist philosophy and its
scientific offshoots to concentrate on epistemology unfettered by first-order questions. This
important chapter in the history of ideas lies behind Lawson's thought. Coming from
mathematics, Lawson engages with economic ideas free from the preconceptions, usually tacit,
2
which Enlightenment metaphysics impose on the intellectual practice of the discipline.
Economics and Reality is the author's careful and deeply informed explication of those selfimposed metaphysical limitations and his program for their removal. This is an upbeat book for
the young of mind, that aims to relaunch economics for the new millennium.
Like Lawson's book, this review divides essentially into three parts: an explication of the
unfamiliar philosophical ideas informing his project; a look at his critique of contemporary
economics; and a review of his ideas for reform. Valuable as it is, it would be miraculous if a
project as ambitious as Lawson's was not open to some serious criticism. Mine falls most
heavily on his vision for the future.
2. Bhaskar
The book begins rather inauspiciously. Learning in Chapter 2 that Lawson is a committed
follower of a philosopher of science, my immediate response was to brace myself for a splashdown in a bog of terminological irrelevance. A half century and tens of thousands of pages of
philosophy-of-science-led methodological analysis of economics has--or so I thought-established that this project, like a Möbius strip, leads nowhere except back into itself. But
Lawson makes a philosophical move which transforms the game. Under the influence of the
Oxford philosopher Roy Bhaskar, Economics and Reality shifts the primary field of play from
epistemology to ontology. We need to turn briefly to Bhaskar's work to see what this means.
Like his forebears Hume and Popper, Bhaskar rearranges the philosophical furniture by
appealing to a few simple but far-reaching and yet overlooked observations whose truth most
readers would feel uncomfortable denying.i He begins with the observation that any theory of
knowledge "entails some theory of the objects of knowledge; that is, every theory of scientific
knowledge logically presupposes a theory of what the world must be like for knowledge, under
the descriptions given it by the theory, to be possible" [Bhaskar, 1986, p. 6]. Because, as noted
above, Positivist epistemology long ago banished ontological awareness, explication of this
epistemology's presuppositions leads predictably to provocative disclosures. Bhaskar launches
his critique with an ontological consideration of a pair of beliefs central to a broad spectrum of
theories of science, running from Mill's ultra-empiricism to Popper's Neo-Kantianism.ii This
mainstream is based on the premises, first, that scientific explanation invariably involves laws,
and, secondly, that those laws are themselves or depend upon empirical regularities [Bhaskar,
1986, p. 66], that is, constant conjunctions of events which take the form "if x, then y." Bhaskar
offers a disarmingly simple refutation of these two supposed verities. He directs attention to the
difference between open systems and closed systems. This distinction, so strategic to the daily
practice of empirical science, has been ignored by the philosophy of science [1986, p. 64].
Leaving aside astronomy, it is only under conditions that are experimentally produced
and controlled that a closure, and hence a constant conjunction of events, is
possible. The empiricist is now caught in a terrible dilemma: for to the extent
that the antecedents of law-like statements are instantiated in open systems, he
must sacrifice either the universal character or the empirical status of laws. If,
on the other hand, he attempts to avoid this dilemma by restricting the
application of laws to closed systems (e.g. by making the satisfaction of a ceteris
paribus clause a condition of their applicability), he is faced with the
embarrassing question of what governs phenomena in open systems [Bhaskar,
1975, p. 65].
3
Bhaskar traces this antinomy to an ontological deficiency. The epistemological theories under
scrutiny, he shows, are founded on an ontology insufficiently rich to explain the projects of
empirical science and their applicability to open systems. Traditional Positivist ontology
postulates no existence beyond the events observed by scientists, and it is this extreme
anthropomorphism which renders traditional philosophy of science incapable of reconciling
scientific explanation with open systems. Bhaskar's remedy is simple and, except for the vulgar
Positivist, painless. In addition to the events observed by experimental science in its closed
systems, Bhaskar postulates the existence of unobserved events and of the structures or
mechanisms which generate those events and which he identifies as the primary objects of
knowledge [1975, pp. 46, 25]. This introduces two levels of realism beyond that of observed
events, hence the "transcendental realism" tag applied to Bhaskar's philosophy.
These moves by Bhaskar lay the ontological foundations for a new and broader theory of
science, one applicable to open systems as well as to closed ones composed of atomistic
individuals.iii In particular, the admission of open systems to scientific investigation demands
alternatives to the deductivist model of explanation with its requirement that the explanandum
be constituted so that descriptions which take the form "whenever this, then that" apply. "Only
with an actual isolation of atomistic individuals will the regularity determinist be able to
categorically predict the future; without it, it always remains on the cards that an unpredicted
change in the external circumstances of the system or the internal states of its individuals will
occur so as to upset an established regularity" [1975, p. 75]. Bhaskar's foregrounding of open
systems of internally structured individuals and his exposure of science's tacit metaphysics
suggest possibilities for the reform and reconceptualization of the social sciences to a degree
which exceeds the combined effect of his predecessors from Popper onwards. It is this hand of
aces which Lawson's book plays out in the context of economics.
3. Lawson's Critique of Contemporary Mainstream Economics
Lawson's quarrel with economic orthodoxy does not take place at the level of substantive
theory. His dispute occurs on the grounds of methodology and its supporting metaphysics. He
advances the thesis that economics' "state of disarray" [p. 282] is due to its presuppositions
regarding the nature of economic systems, presuppositions which arise from its insistence that
"certain methods and procedures" [p. 16] be employed regardless of the nature of the object of
inquiry. The doctrine of determinism, including the deductivist mode of explanation, heads
Lawson's list of methodological misadventures. Economic theory, with its superstructure of
axioms (or assumptions), equilibrium states and socially impervious individuals, presupposes
the universal legitimacy of deductivist explanation for economic phenomena. Lawson takes
great care to show the restraints which this determinist metaphysic places on theory construction
and econometric practice.
He identifies two types of closure, intrinsic and extrinsic, as essential to the belief that "for every
economic event or state of affairs y there exists a set of events or conditions x1, x2 ...xn, such that
y and x1, x2 ...xn are regularly conjoined under some (set of) formulation(s)" [p. 98]. Intrinsic
closure is the requirement that the internal structure or state of any individual unit of analysis is
constant and reducible to the system conditions obtaining. Economic theory's atomistic
conception of individuals (as having no internal structure) provides a short-cut to this closure.
Extrinsic closure is the need for deductivist explanations to internalize, that is to include in their
specified set of conditions x1, x2 ...xn, all potential influences on the outcome or to show these
conditions to be constant in their influence. The "need to satisfy the extrinsic condition
4
encourages formulations in which each individual acts in relative isolation" so that "the overall
outcome of a system composed of numerous such individuals can then be determined merely by
adding together (or otherwise mechanistically combining) their separate responses" [p. 99].
Lawson's key point here is that it is these tacit requirements of the deductivist mode of
explanation, rather than substantive considerations, which lead to economic models being
predicated in terms of atomistic individuals acting in relative isolation. In other words,
metaphysics, and metaphysics of a particular sort, is shown to be the primary determinant of the
shape of economic theory. Deductivism "presupposes a ubiquity of social closures, while in the
event, social closures of an interesting kind appear to be extremely rare", thereby making the
range of socio-economic phenomena open to deductivist investigation extremely narrow [p. 98].
Lawson's critique of econometrics follows the same pattern as his critique of economic theory.
He reads econometrics as a probabilistic interpretation--"regularity stochasticism"--of the
"whenever this, then that" mode of explanation. Under this revised "metaphysical thesis", every
event or state of affairs is conjoined with a set of events or conditions under "well-behaved"
probabilistic formulations. In other words, "stochastic closures are everywhere assumed to
hold" [p. 76]. The identification of stable econometric relationships requires that the system of
investigation be "closed-off" from extraneous effects (the "extrinsic closure condition"), and
from changes in the internal states of the individuals under analysis (the "intrinsic closure
condition") [pp. 78-9]. The first requirement leads to the supposition that the behavior of
individuals--for example, consumers' preferences--can always be analyzed as if those behaviors
were not interdependent. The second requirement leads to the supposition that the individuals
can be conceived of atomistically.
It is under the influence of these [isolationist and atomistic] fallacies that
econometricians attempt repeatedly to shore up the closure conditions. And in
the limit the tendencies so set in train amount to the search for systems so large
that they exclude nothing, couched in terms of single individuals so small that
they include nothing [p. 84].
Adherence to this regularity stochasticism, says Lawson, "sets us off searching in the wrong
direction" [p. 84]. Regularity conjunctions do not characterize economic systems. Instead, in
the manner of open systems, various generative mechanisms operate concurrently and
intermittently so that alternately they may intensify, inhibit or cancel each other out. Lawson,
like Bhaskar, gives the example of falling leaves. A search for constant conjunctions in the
paths of their fall will lead only to disappointment. It is certainly true that well-understood
forces (gravitational, aerodynamic and thermal) are at work in "determining" the leaf's flight
path in the forest as much as these forces are at work in laboratory experiments. But, unlike
computers and other closed systems, there is no synchrony between the operative forces.
Economics also presents the case of an open not a closed system. Furthermore, economic
systems display a qualitatively greater order of openness than the purely physical systems which
govern falling leaves. Because economic systems are human creations, the operative structures
and forces of those systems tend to change over time. This evolutionary, unsynchronized and
intersubjective nature of economic systems accounts, says Lawson, for the well-known failure
to uncover stable econometric relationships.
At times Lawson's critique lapses almost into burlesque, for example in his selection of Frank
Hahn's well-known but immoderate prescriptions for economic theory, and when he depicts
econometric practice by considering the "Lucas Critique" [Lucas, 1976] and responses to it.
Lawson, however, uses these colorful cases not as easy targets, but rather as vivid illustrations
of the preconceptions (and their ramifications), which in various degrees pervade mainstream
tradition. However, Lawson fails to mention that the econometrician's multivariate analysis
5
may constitute a search for the deeper structures and mechanisms which Economics and Reality
identifies as economics' proper object of inquiry [Baert, 1996, p. 519].
4. Lawson's Reforms
Lawson is least convincing when offering alternatives to the status quo. Again he relies heavily
on Bhaskar, whose philosophy of science and "theory of social ontology" he combines and
fleshes out in the context of economics. The result is not so much ill-conceived as incomplete.
Lawson begins with the significant and well-defined Bhaskarian distinction between external
and internal relations. "Two objects or aspects are said to be externally related if neither is
constituted by the relationship in which it stands to the other," as for example, bread and butter.
"[T]wo objects are said to be internally related if they are what they are by virtue of the
relationship in which they stand to one other," for example, "teacher and student, magnet and its
field" [p. 164]. Economics, we are told, should abandon its commitment to atomism and
recognize "the internal relationality" [p. 164] of economic life; identify "the relationship
between human agency and social structure" [p. 167]; incorporate a "transformational
conception of social activity" [p. 171]; accommodate "the phenomenon of emergence" [p. 176];
and recognize the historical specificity of economic systems. But this program is as old as it is
worthy. Schools and would-be schools encompassing some or all of these goals litter the
history of economic thought. What does Lawson offer toward these ends that his predecessors
did not?
At first glance it seems not overly much. His book lacks usable conceptual tools and ideas for
establishing new research programs, so that when it comes to the actual journey to the brave
new future, his effort, like other methodologically inspired critiques, never lifts off. Even so, it
facilitates reform of economics in significant ways. It offers some--but not all--of the
philosophical foundations needed for substantive changes which do not conform to neoclassical
ontology. It engraves on the reader's mind, by repetition and felicitous example, the
predominately open nature of economic systems and the need for both theoreticians and
econometricians to come to terms with this central dimension of economic reality. Lawson's
analysis also opens the door to the kind of methodological and conceptual pragmatism which
has always, thank goodness, predominated in the natural sciences. Economics tends to forget
that different methods and conceptual systems admit and exclude different kinds of empirical
phenomena, so that choice of methodological frameworks determines which subsets of
economic phenomena are subjected to disciplined inquiry and which are not.iv In the natural
sciences discussion of methodology is concerned with which sets of preconceptions and
procedures best fit various possible objects of inquiry. But in economics, discussion of
methodology traditionally is confined to arguments about which preconceptions and procedures
should be adopted to the permanent exclusion of all other sets. And so, of course, great chunks
of economic reality are precluded from inquiry altogether. If, however, economics reinvents
itself as predominantly concerned with understanding economic reality in all its changing
diversity, if it places the empirical pursuit ahead of metaphysical purity, then many frameworks
may have their useful places.
Lawson makes the case that conceptual flexibility looms especially important in economics,
since socio-economic structures are human creations and, therefore, space-time dependent [pp.
163-173]. Ordinary historical processes, in addition to the discipline's internal dialectic
described by Thomas Kuhn, creates the need for amendment and expansion of economics'
conceptual frameworks. But economists who are not engaged in a critique of the discipline's
6
methodological foundations also have emphasized the historical relativity of economic reality,
and one strand of these more worldly critiques offer a means of bringing Lawson's ideas down
to earth. In the twentieth century, economic life has grown increasingly intersubjective, and
social and economic realities more compounded, so that an ever diminishing proportion of
economic phenomena falls within the compass of the mainstream's methodological brief.
Recently various economists have commented on this phenomenon in relation to market theory.
Caravale, for example, notes that "the neoclassical scheme refers to an institutional framework
which in no way resembles that of present-day economic systems" [1995, pp. 243-4]. Jonsson
observes that the determination "to sidestep the issue of preference formation" in an age of
emulative desires has led to such a loss of regard for economics "that many researchers in the
fields of consumer psychology and marketing actually believe that the economic literature over
the last few decades has contributed nothing to the understanding of consumer behavior" [1996,
p. 113].
It is fascinating to note that this particular spectre of diminishing relevance due to historical
trends was foreseen and schematized a century ago by Caroline Foley [1893]. Writing in The
Economic Journal, she argued that as consumption levels rise increasingly above subsistence
level, the ontological basis of individuals' demands change progressively, and, in consequence,
so does the structure and dynamics of market demand [Fullbrook, forthcoming]. Like Lawson's
book, Foley's article was a manifesto of sorts calling for an expansion of economics' conceptual
framework. She identifies rising standards of living as causing consumer demands to become
less closely tied to biological needs, so that social or intersubjective factors, with their reflexive
and discontinuous structures, increasingly enter into demand determination. Foley also saw that
this historical shift in the nature of market phenomena requires the modification of economics'
ontology if the expanding subclass of demand phenomena was to be subjected to systematic
inquiry. Foley conceptualized intersubjective demand not as a "class of wants under such heads
as necessaries, comforts, or luxuries, but as rather a co-efficient of any of these, so that it
appears as a want in wants" [462]. In this way Foley's analysis divides demand between its
intrasubjective component, the demand described by Neoclassical theory, and its intersubjective
component, demand grounded in interpersonal phenomena. But rather than dismissing the
neoclassical atomistic approach, she identifies its area of relevance. Through development of a
theory of intersubjective demand she anticipates an expansion of the basic paradigm, analogous
to physics' expansion of its paradigm so as to include in its field of inquiry force phenomena due
to magnetism and the two nuclear forces. Similarly, Lawson's reform program, more general
but less specified than Foley's, need not be read as attacking traditional economics except in so
far it is used to block extension of inquiry across a larger portion of economic reality.
But Lawson's program, like Foley's, requires an ontological account of intersubjectivity and a
conceptualization of economic agents as open or non-atomistic systems. This is not nearly as
easy as it sounds. Part III of Lawson's book, "Human Agency and Society", is its most
disappointing section. Its chapter "A Sketch of the Acting Subject" betrays unawareness of the
extreme conceptual difficulty which intersubjectivity, an issue closely related to the problem of
solipsism, has posed for Western thought. Indeed, prior to Hegel's master-slave parable (1803),
the phenomena of intersubjectivity was as absent from the published considerations of
philosophers as of economists. But following Franz Brentano's Psychology from an Empirical
Standpoint (1874), which against Enlightenment tradition posited consciousness as a relation
rather than as a container, much progress has been made in this field. And sometimes theories
of intersubjectivity have been applied with great practical success, as for example in Simone de
Beauvoir's now almost universally used concept of gender.v Lawson, however, writes as if he
were entering virtually new territory. We are told that the human being is an emergent
7
phenomenon who possesses tacit knowledge and who acts purposively and in social contexts
and with unforeseeable consequences. This, the level of truism, is about as deep as Lawson's
social theory goes. His sketch of acting subjects and their interaction is simplistic. I use this
epithet, of course, not invidiously, but descriptively; if one seriously seeks reform along the
lines indicated by Lawson, then it is imperative to provide a coherent and ontologically
grounded model of the intersubjective agent. A recent grouping of economists centered in
France, the "Intersubjectivists", hold some of the missing pieces to Lawson's conceptual jigsaw
[Fullbrook, 1996, 1997]. They, like Lawson, draw inspiration from Keynes's account of
financial markets in Chapter Twelve of The General Theory [Orléan, 1988, 1992]. Led by JeanPierre Dupuy and André Orléan, the Intersubjectivists have formulated a homo economicus on
the basis of the relational view of consciousness. [Dupuy, 1989, 1992a, 1992b; Orléan, 1989a]
They also have explored the structures of economic reflextivity and developed methods for
analysing intersubjective market phenomena. [Dupuy, 1991, 1992a, 1994; Orléan, 1989b, 1990,
1992] They lack, however, Lawson's deep ontological analysis of economic reality, so that the
two sets of ideas, Lawson's and the Intersubjectivists, seem made for each other.
Finally, I wish to connect Economics and Reality to a concept advanced by L. E. Johnson
[1983] in a critique of Kuhn's theory of scientific change. Under the term "purposive function"
or "P-F", Johnson introduces the idea that, as with any human activity, some intent or goal
always lies behind a research program, partly determining the program's basic issues, its
"fundamental theoretical assumptions" and "which anomalies are likely to be regarded as
serious enough to precipitate a professional crisis" [1103]. Like economic structures, purposive
functions are historically relative, reflecting "the broader social environment within which
economists work" [1103], and thereby acting as another source of paradigm change external to
the processes of normal science. But whereas the concept of purposive function undermines
Kuhn's analysis, it conjoins supportively with Lawson's. It may even be used to place in a
calming perspective the whole of Lawson's project. For if it is granted that the goals which
shaped the founding of a research program may be obscured through passage of time and, in
some cases, through having their origins in other disciplines, then the purposive function
structuring that research program may disagree with the purposive function of its current
practitioners. The mismatch may be little understood. Lawson's book implicitly plays to what
he perceives to be an underexposed purposive function discordance in contemporary economics.
The taboo against ontological inquiry has veiled the arbitrary and restricted nature of
economics' core concepts and their inability to encompass an ever expanding field of economic
activity. Meanwhile, strong attachment to the traditional framework persists among economists,
but so too does belief in that other Enlightenment commitment to broadening human
knowledge. By showing that economics as currently constituted frustrates that project, Lawson
seeks to bring the purposive function discordance into full awareness.
But because Lawson's book never quite connects up with either proposed or ongoing research
programs, his efforts risk evaporation through inward-turning discussions by a band of likeminded meta-theoreticians. Indeed, a very interesting group of discussants has already sprung
up around Lawson and the Cambridge Journal of Economics, which shows signs of turning
Lawson's fluid critique into dogma [Arestis, 1996; Dow, 1990, 1995; Fleetwood, 1996,
Sofianou, 1995]. This, of course, is the classic road to nowhere travelled by most would-be
reformers of all kinds throughout history. One purpose of this article is to nudge Lawson and
his colleagues and more especially their ideas out into the larger, dirtier world. In fact, Lawson's
ideas are highly contaminable and contaminating. This is what makes them potentially so
powerful.
8
5. Conclusion
Despite my caveats, I think that all economists should read Economics and Reality. This is a
matter not only for self-enlightenment but sheer self-interest [Fullbrook, 1994]. As Lawson
notes:
Until recently those who wished to engage in the academic study of aspects of economic
activity had little option but to enter economics departments. This is no longer
the case. Nowadays, possibilities for studying economic life as it occurs are
increasingly being offered elsewhere, particularity in departments of
management studies or business schools, but also in departments of human
geography, history, sociology, land economy, accounting, and so on. Reports are
appearing in the UK, Australia and especially North America of a significant
decline in enrolments on economics courses . . . and a correspondingly increased
take up in alternatives of the sort listed above. And there is evidence that the
perceived irrelevance of formalistic economics looms large in the explanation
[Lawson, 1997b, p. 24].
Two irksome failings common to economics' meta-theoretical discourse--ill-humour and
grandstanding--are conspicuous by their absence from Lawson's book. This is not an author
who hates his adversaries nor one who is intoxicated by a few whiffs of philosophy. But like so
many recent social science books, this one cries out for another draft or two and a ruthless
editor. Its prose, although never less than lucid, is lumpy, and its basic message is repeated too
many times. Yet these stand as minor criticisms beside Lawson's substantial achievement.
Tony Lawson hopes his book will "facilitate a rapid transformation in orthodox economics"
[197]. Undoubtedly he will be disappointed. Like banana republics and royal families,
economics is amazingly resistant to fundamental reform. It remains quite possible, however,
that Lawson has written one of those rare books which make a real difference--one which in
time will perceptibly shift the course of the mainstream of economics.
ENDNOTES
1. As happened with Popper in the 1960s and 1970s, an energetic band of philosophers and
social scientists (almost exclusively British) have coalesced recently around Bhaskar's critique
of science. Their collective efforts include the Centre for Critical Realism and the conference
Critical Realism and the Crisis in the Human Sciences, August 1997.
2. Bhaskar's mission is essentially 'conservative', in the sense that he wishes to stop the longterm erosion of science's rationale and even to regain some of its lost credibility. He believes
that the idealogy of science has occupied indefensible ground, which, coming under attack, has
jeopardized the credibility of the whole project.
3. Bhaskar's primary target is not science, but the philosophy of science. With rare exceptions
the direction of influence runs from the natural sciences to the philosophy of science. But the
relationship between the social sciences and their philosophical cousin, although no less
asymmetric, is quite other. Epistemologists fail to find in the social sciences models of success,
while social scientists, forever hopeful of throwing off their under-achiever status, ruminate
compulsively on the latest theories of science inspired by scientists working with non-social
9
phenomena. It is a curious hermeneutic pattern.
4. For example, in physics the Newtonian conceptual scheme excludes force phenomena
resulting from magnetism and the two atomic forces.
5. For an overview of the theory of intersubjectivity and its relation to the social sciences, see
"Intersubjective Social Theory" in Edward Fullbrook and Kate Fullbrook, Simone de Beauvoir:
A Critical Introduction, Polity Press: Cambridge UK, 1998; Blackwell: Cambridge, MA, USA,
1998, pp. 94-99; or Kate Fullbrook and Edward Fullbrook, "Simone De Beauvoir", A
Companion to Continental Philosophy, ed. Simon Critchley and Bill Schroeder, Blackwell:
Oxford UK and Cambridge MA, USA, 1997.
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