Andy Denis: research interests

This page gives some details of my research interests and activities. My research interests lie in the area of the history and philosophy of economics. My publications are indicated below. I completed a PhD thesis in 2001 on collective and individual rationality, that is, the mode of articulation between micro and macro levels, in the history of economic thought – again, more details can be found further down the page. Finally, some other research activities are detailed at the end of the page. Everything should be easily downloadable. Feel free to email me a comment.

Journal articles

Andy Denis (2006) “Collective and individual rationality: Robert Malthus’s heterodox theodicy” History of Economic Ideas 14 (2): 9-31.

Andy Denis (2005) “The Invisible Hand of God in Adam Smith” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology 23-A: 1-32.

Andy Denis (September 2004) “Two rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire” Journal of Economic Methodology 11(3): 341-353.

Andy Denis (2003) “Methodology and policy prescription in economic thought: a response to Mario Bunge” The Journal of Socio-Economics 32 (2), 219-226. Mario Bunge’s article can be seen at: http://www.city.ac.uk/andy/research/bunge.pdf.

Andy Denis (2002) “Collective and individual rationality: Maynard Keynes’s methodological standpoint and policy prescription”, Research in Political Economy 20, December, 187-215.

Andy Denis (2002) “Was Hayek a Panglossian evolutionary theorist? A reply to Whitman” Constitutional Political Economy 13 (3), September, 275-285. A rejoinder by Glen Whitman appeared in CPE in December 2003 (http://journals.kluweronline.com/article.asp?PIPS=5146926). Click here to see my response to Whitman’s rejoinder to my reply to his original article.

Andy Denis (2000) 'Epistemology, observed particulars and providentialist assumptions: the fact in the history of political economy', Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 31 (2) 353-361. An essay-review of Mary Poovey (1998) A History of the Modern Fact. Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.

Andy Denis (1999) 'Was Adam Smith an Individualist?' History of the Human Sciences 12 (3), August, 71-86.

PhD thesis

My PhD thesis Collective and Individual Rationality: Some Episodes in the History of Economic Thought (2001) may be seen by clicking the link for the relevant section below.

Title page, dedication, contents, key words, abstract and acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Introduction: Holism versus reductionism in economic thought

Chapter 2: the Prisoners' Dilemma

Chapter 3: Arrow's Impossibility Theorem

Chapter 4: The Invisible Hand of God in Adam Smith

Chapter 5: Friedrich Hayek: a Panglossian evolutionary theorist

Chapter 6: Keynes’s methodological standpoint and policy prescription

Chapter 7: Conclusion; glossary; and bibliography

Discussion papers

Andy Denis (2006) “Some notes on methodological individualism: orthodox and heterodox views”. Paper presented at the June 2006 annual conference of the AHE, LSE, London, and SCEME Workshop, October 2006, Stirling.

Andy Denis (2005) “Collective and individual rationality in the history of economic thought: the early Marx’s theory of states as organisms”. Paper presented at the UK History of Economic Thought conference, University of Exeter, September 2005.

Andy Denis (2005) “Dialectics and the Austrian School? The search for common ground in the methodology of heterodox economics”. Paper prepared for a research seminar at the Department of Economics, Nottingham Trent University, 16 February 2005.

Andy Denis (2004) “The hypostatisation of the concept of equilibrium in neoclassical economics” Paper presented at the ‘Dissent in Science’ Seminar, CPNSS, LSE, London, April 2004, the annual conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics, Leeds, July 2004, the annual conference of the International Network for Economic Method, Amsterdam, September 2004, and SCEME Workshop on "Systems in the Economy, Theory and Modelling", Stirling, November 2004.

Andy Denis (2003) “Collective and individual rationality: Robert Malthus’s heterodox theodicy”. Paper presented at the Annual Conference of the Association for Heterodox Economics, Nottingham Trent University, July 2003, and the September 2003 UK History of Economic Thought conference, University of Leeds. Now published in History of Economic Ideas – see above.

Andy Denis (2003) “Two rhetorical strategies of laissez-faire”. Paper presented at Department of Economics Research Seminar, City University, London, April 2003, and the INEM annual conference, Leeds University, September 2003. Now in the Journal of Economic Methodology – see above.

Andy Denis (2003) “A note on Richard Dawkins on the nature of the gene”

The following papers have now been superseded by the corresponding chapters of my thesis, which can be downloaded by clicking on the links above.

Andy Denis (May 1999) 'Friedrich Hayek: a Panglossian evolutionary theorist' Interdisciplinary Seminar Discussion Paper, School of Social and Human Sciences, City University, London

Andy Denis (November 1997) 'Collective and Individual Rationality in Economics: the Invisible Hand of God in Adam Smith' City University Department of Economics and Applied Econometrics Research Unit Discussion Paper Number 62.

Andy Denis (November 1996) 'Collective and Individual Rationality in Economics: Arrow's Impossibility Theorem' City University Department of Economics and Applied Econometrics Research Unit Discussion Paper Number 54.

Andy Denis (November 1996) 'Collective and Individual Rationality in Economics: the Prisoners' Dilemma' City University Department of Economics and Applied Econometrics Research Unit Discussion Paper Number 53.

Book Reviews

Andy Denis (2004) Review of Bruce Caldwell (2004) Hayek’s Challenge: an Intellectual Biography of F. A. Hayek Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press

Andy Denis (2004) Review of Nicola Giocoli (2003) Modelling Rational Agents: From Interwar Economics To Early Modern Game Theory Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Andy Denis (2001) “Hayek and the emergence of spontaneous order”, ESHET Newsletter, Issue 6. A review of Boudewijn Bouckaert and Annette Godart-van der Kroon (eds) (2000) Hayek Revisited Cheltenham, UK, and Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar/The Locke Institute (for the Ludwig von Mises Institute). Click here for another (shorter) review of the same book for Amazon.

Other research activities

I am a referee for the following journals and publishers:

History of the Human Sciences,

Constitutional Political Economy,

Research In The History Of Economic Thought And Methodology,

Review of Political Economy,

Research in Political Economy,

Journal of Socio-Economics,

and Routledge publishers.

I am a member of the organising committee for the Association for Heterodox Economics annual conference. Click here for further information about the Association and the Conference.

Supervision: I have two PhD students at City, looking at an agent-based computational economics simulation of deindustrialisation in the UK, and at the history and methodology of national accounting. I also supervise a number of undergraduate final year projects from time to time.

I administer the London History and Philosophy of Economics group. Click here for more information.

Send me an e-mail at: a.denis at city.ac.uk.

Back to my home page.

Revised: Tuesday, 06 March 2007