Functionalist Economics: A Deweyan Approach

In this study, we have tried to identify two different approaches for dealing with social problems and issues. The first one is causal explanation which is retrospective, static and physical. The other one, functional analysis, is prospective, dynamic, and normative. Institutions are the main subject of economics. Human social-institutional reality has a common underlying structure and these structures are matters of status functions. We proposed a method which aims at efficacy of these functions using intelligence rather than assuming these functions as intrinsic and trying to grasp the realty from without by a rationality apparatus. The aim of this article is to show that, Dewey’s Logic provides us with this alternative functionalist approach in a comprehensive way.