And don't drive like my brother

I think my brother may have taken that last corner a little too fast. Rather than dismissing other approaches out of hand, I carefully (if briefly) compared and contrasted two different approaches. I would think that the subject of the post would merit closer examination, since the empiricist, or positivist, approach in the social sciences was pioneered by Auguste Comte, the father of sociology, which my brother has studied extensively. I wonder, though, if in his sociology studies the milieu was so thoroughly empiricist that what empiricism is might be indiscernible to him. I couldn't say for sure.

In any case, while human action is arguably not entirely economic, the point of the first paragraph is that all humans have an interest in understanding economics. If that is in dispute, the focus ought not be on the most audacious-sounding phrase, but on the overall premise presented in the paragraph. And to say that a discipline popularly associated with material possessions is broad enough to encompass all human action can be seen two ways, only one of which is to say that all human action revolves around material possessions.

So I wonder if I shall have a debate about the legitimacy of the empiricist (aka positivist) method of economics, or about the value of economic study to the layperson. Perhaps it behooves us, however, to explore just what the purview of economics is.