Geographical economics is a recent approach in economics aiming at introducing the ‘role of space’ into the mainstream of the discipline. Though interested in similar issues, economic geographers strongly criticise geographical economics. This paper puts such criticisms under scrutiny, taking Ron Martin's 1999 influential contribution as representative. A philosophically informed analysis of these criticisms brings forth possible misunderstandings in the dispute and hence assists both parties by making criticism and responses more incisive. If, as it seems at least in some geographers’ view, economic geographers are concerned with mechanisms and processes different from the abstract general economic mechanisms analysed by geographical economists, then complementarity between the two approaches turns out to be a possibility. This challenges both economic geographers and geographical economists because it asks them to go beyond methodological differences and establish whether the general and abstract mechanisms identified by the latter are compatible with those identified by the former. If so, further investigation on how they combine as to bring about real-world agglomeration is needed.