Exploring the Foundations of Complexity Economics: Unveiling the Interplay of Ontological, Epistemological, Methodological, and Conceptual Aspects

What gives complexity economics its identity is the relationships and hierarchy among its ontological, epistemological, methodological, and conceptual aspects. This paper explores each one of these aspects and their interplays, to precise the contours of the complexity approach. This paper aims to stress the coherent articulation and architecture of these four dimensions. In particular, ontology matters, it comes first as an indispensable pre-scientific analysis that conditions the adoption of an adequate criterion of scientific explanation with methodological consequences in terms of relevant tools and key concepts. Reflections on the concept of emergence are particularly symptomatic of the overall coherence of the complexity approach. It becomes challenging to persist in attempting to enhance the mainstream with new tools to address novel phenomena and, more broadly, to regard the complexity approach as a supplement. Instead, the complexity approach emerges as a distinct alternative approach.