PO217 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Empiricism, Normative Economics, Operational Definition
Document Summary
Normative vs. empirical analysis: normative analysis, defines how we think things ought to be, prescriptive, not tested, no observation, data or evidence. Putti(cid:374)g (cid:862)s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e(cid:863) i(cid:374) politi(cid:272)al s(cid:272)ie(cid:374)(cid:272)e: philosophy and method of inquiry. Intuition (gut feeling/sixth sense: tradition (culture, faith, experience (observation) The scientific method (positivism: reality can be measured empirically, we can observe reality, reality can be measured objectively, we share a reality, postmodernists believe you can not measure reality objectively (opposite of positivism, nature is orderly (determinism) Empiricism: requires that every knowledge claim be based upon systematic observation. Intersubjectivity***: how we guard against our own bias, transmissible, clearly define our term and what we are measuring, what is included and what is not included, must be done in advance, replicable. The scientific method vs. common sense: scientific method is a more sophisticated version of the way we go about making sense of the world around us:
