A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics

The first general criticism has to do with what constitutes a Kuhnian paradigm or a
revolution in economic thought. For instance, Stigler (1969) was one of the first economists to
cast serious doubts on the applicability of Kuhn’s schema in economics given the loose
definition of the concept of paradigm. He criticized the imprecision of Kuhn’s definition of the
term paradigm and argued that this is an obstacle for its testing in economics. As he
comments (1969, p. 225): “My main quarrel with Kuhn is over his failure to specify the nature
of a paradigm in sufficient detail that his central thesis can be tested empirically”. This has led
a number of economists to find the terms not only vague but confusing for the understanding
of the history of the discipline. For example, Blaug (1976, p. 149) maintains that term
paradigm should be “banished from economic literature, unless surrounded by inverted
commas”. The same view is adopted by Redman (1993, p. 144) who believes that this
terminology acts not to clarify but serves, rather, to obscure the issues. The imprecision and
vagueness of this Kuhnian term has also been pointed out by Johnson (1983), and Glass
and Johnson (1989, p.164). It has to be noted though, that there are methodologists who do
not think that vagueness is necessarily a negative characteristic (e.g. Dow, 1985).

The second line of criticism of the Kuhnian approach is that it does not fit
appropriately to the history of economic thought. For instance, M. Bronfenbrenner (1971)
believes that Kuhn’s ideas about the destruction of a theory and its replacement by another
one has not been the case in economics. Furthermore, he does not see the crisis of the
discipline as a cause of the emergence of new theories. In the same spirit, Weintraub (1979)
believes that Kuhn's account of scientific revolutions and the rise and fall of different
paradigms, is not a correct way to approach the history of economic thought. Weintraub
views the history of economics more as a continuing accumulation of knowledge. Glass and
Johnson (1989, pp. 112-170) after discussing orthodox and Marxist economics view

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