Retroduction as mixed-methods triangulation in economic research: reorienting economics into social science

Abstract

This paper argues that mixed-methods triangulation can be understood as the manifestation of retroduction, the logic of inference espoused by critical realism. As such, it can provide the basis upon which different insights upon the same phenomenon can be sensibly combined and thus has the potential to unite aspects of different traditions of economic and social thought. In this regard, the paper supports Lawson's view that the exclusive insistence on mathematical and statistical modelling in economics is misguided. The paper explores how disciplinary boundaries may be broken down and interdisciplinary social science, of which economics can be a part, established.