Microfoundations have long been the subject of a methodological debate over how microeconomic and macroeconomic analysis are understood to relate to one another. Despite once being an important debate with profound consequences for how economics was practiced, changes in macroeconomics over the past 40 years have made the debate vestigial and irrelevant for understanding, justifying, and criticizing modern mainstream macroeconomics. Specifically, macroeconomics has undergone a methodological convergence, making it methodologically indistinguishable from microeconomic analysis. For this reason, the debate should be reoriented away from “microfoundations” and toward issues which are currently salient: aggregation and heterogeneity.

This article examines the development of Mary Koss’s influential Sexual Experiences Survey and defends her then-controversial interpretive choice to endorse a broad-scope definition of rape. Koss’s choice was informed by an empirical recognition of how unjust power dynamics could confound measurement strategies. By adopting a feminist standpoint, Koss and her colleagues recognized how many measurement procedures implicitly disempowered respondents’ capacity to express inquiry-relevant data. Ultimately, the iterative development of a valid and reliable measurement system is compatible with, and quite comparable to, the feminist project of identifying how gendered relations of power enable the persistence and concealment of sexual violence.

The notion that a common narrative constitutes the meaningfulness of groups and other social collectives has been put forward by both philosophers and social scientists. In this view, the constitution of collectives is linked to the coherence internal to narratives—a paradigm herein dubbed the “intra-narrative” approach. Though elegant, this approach has inbuilt limitations. Focusing on philosophical arguments advancing the intra-narrative view, this essay contrasts this model with an “inter-narrative” approach premised on the meaningful connections interactants draw amongst a plurality of narratives and offers the phenomenon of “second stories” as an inroad to an inter-narrative theory of social collectives.

Praxeology, the Austrian School’s methodological foundation, asserts that economic laws derive a priori from the axiom of purposeful action, independent of empirical validation. While most modern economic schools reject this approach, praxeology remains influential in economic methodology and policy debates. This paper presents a systematic critique, highlighting its methodological weaknesses, definitional ambiguities, and reliance on unfalsifiable axioms. It introduces novel arguments, strengthens existing critiques, and examines praxeology’s applicability in light of psychological and neuroscientific findings. Additionally, it connects praxeology’s limitations to broader methodological issues in neoclassical economics, questioning its viability as a foundation for economic inquiry.

Extant accounts of multidimensional poverty have continued to neglect the extent at which severe deprivations in adequate information usage and interpretation are a legitimate feature of poverty. I propose a new hermeneutic theory of information poverty that combines the insights from philosophical and development economic theories, is complementary to extant multidimensional poverty metrics, and is illustrated with a detailed case study concerning “persons with albinism” in contemporary Tanzania. I argue that this theory allows for partially measurable features of information poverty, is applicable in policy contexts, and should be of concern to, among others, advocates of the capabilities approach in political philosophy.

Popper’s philosophy of science and economic imperialism are “correctly” formulated. Popper’s philosophy contrasts with the author’s interpretation. The reliance on situational analysis is dubious; one needs to break with it. Three tasks are bringing Popper’s theory in conformity with scientific research and practices of social scientists and explaining how Popper could have endorsed a theory of how institutions function. The description of problems Popper’s view raises is too narrow, as is situational analysis. Merten had sympathy for Popper’s philosophy. Popper’s theory is incorrectly described, due to the absence of philosophical considerations.

The central claim of this book is that a paradigm shift from ideal to nonideal social ontology is currently underway, and that this shift ought to be fully followed through. I present a summary of three central ideas to argue for this claim. First, to develop and criticize the standard model of ideal social ontology. Second, to argue that social power, rather than collective intentionality, ought to play a key role in our general theories of the social world. Third, that my own nonideal account—the power view—can incorporate opaque kinds of social facts, such as economic classes.

There are three prevalent themes among the critics. First, a call to advance the concept of social power by expanding on structural power and demonstrating how telic power can be operationalized. Second, the critics want a stronger objection to the collective intentionality claim (assumed by the standard model). Third, there is a need to clarify the concept of opaque kinds of social facts, especially in relation to economic class. I integrate Khalidi’s clarification of opaqueness, elaborate on the concept of economic class, and introduce a new development of the power view by operationalizing telic power through an empirical case study.

This is a response to Daniel Little’s review of my recent book, To Judge and To Justify: Profiles of the Academic Vocation . While Little’s recognizes that the book’s contents reflect my academic formation, he is disappointed that it does not conform to a certain view of the sociology of knowledge. In response, I accuse him of “trained incapacity” as a reader and proceed to elaborate what I call in the book “smart transcendentalism,” which orients my general approach to the sociology of knowledge.

This paper discusses current debates about the normativity of joint commitments in analytical social ontology from a methodological point of view. I argue that collective-acceptance-based, critical-emancipatory, and experimental-philosophy-based approaches to social ontology all face challenges in accommodating the dynamic and strategic aspects of joint commitment. To make up for their shortcomings, I draw on evolutionary game theory and mindshaping approaches to social cognition, while distinguishing between the mental models that individuals use for reasoning about joint commitments and the theoreticians’ models that philosophers construct for studying select aspects of social reality.