A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics

IV. The Influence of Imre Lakatos

Many philosophers of science consider Lakatos’s ideas as being rooted in
Popperian concepts and especially in Popper’s falsificationism. Popper’s methodological
views were and still are very influential among economists and this might be the main
reason why the influence of Lakatos’ methodology is much stronger among economists
than Kuhn’s (for a collection of papers discussing Popper’s influence on economics see
de Marchi, 1988). Lakatos’ starting idea is that the unit of scientific achievements is not an
isolated hypothesis but a scientific research program. (MSRP). The “hard core” of this
programme is a framework of general hypotheses. This hard core would not be falsified by
followers of that programme. The protective belt which surounds it, contains hypotheses,
and observation statements which may be falsified. The “negative heuristics” is the
condition that the hard core of the programme remains unchanged. The “positive heuristics
consists of a set of suggestions which develop the refutable variants of the research
programme. The idea of scientific progress lies in the replacement of degenerating MSRP
by new progressive one. The new programme provides for future research and leads to
the discovery of novel phenomena. (for a much more detailed presentation of Lakatos’
ideas see Lakatos, 1978 and Redman,1993).

Many historians of economics have accepted Lakatos’ views as important
conceptual tools for understanding the growth of economic knowledge.³ De Marchi (1991,
p. 15) defending the Lakatosian progress type in economics, argued that such a theory is
a useful framework for the understanding of the development of economic ideas.
Backhouse (1994, p.188) believes that Lakatos provides a valuable starting point for
understanding the growth of economic knowledge.

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