An Analysis of the Relation of Ontology and Methodology of Economics Based on the Lawson's Approach

Every certain type of ontology requires a special methodology. This paper seeks to study the Lawson's view on the nature of socioeconomic reality, the nature of knowing to it, and identifying the methods that are suitable for evaluating the socioeconomic world. According to the presented analysis, based on Lawson's critical realism approach, the nature of social reality is such that it rejects mathematical tools and methods, and instead of the analogy and the inductive method, it uses the retroductive for the suitable economic analysis. The retroductive argument is a motion from the recognition of some existing phenomena at each level of reality towards the recognition of mechanisms at a deeper level than reality. Economics can succeed in explaining social reality by using the retroductive deduction method. The retroductive methodology itself derives from ontology based on critical realism, which, can be used in economic analysis in contrast to the deductive method of the conventional economics. According to the findings, reproductive can be used to formulate the theories of Islamic economics.