A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics

appeared later but as it was pointed out, it was stronger. The Lakatosian influence also
diminished with time.

The second observation has to do with the appeal of the notion of Kuhnian paradigm.
It seems that a limited number of economists recognized the Classical and the Neoclassical
schools of thought as paradigms, but the application of this notion to individual economic
theories like the theory of the firm or general equilibrium theory was stronger. More popular
among economists was the use of the idea of Kuhnian scientific revolutions. In particular, the
concept of Kuhnian revolution with reference to the Keynesian revolution has been supported
by many economists. The third point concerns the thrust of the critical attitudes towards
Kuhn’s views. The vagueness of Kuhnian terminology and also the appropriateness of
Kuhn’s schema for the evolution of economic thought were the two main criticisms.

The application of the Lakatosian notion of scientific research programmes to
economics was the next observation of the discussion. A number of SRP in economics have
been identified like classical, marginalist, Keynesian, Austrian and other. Furthermore, there
are numerous examples of individual economic theories which have been interpreted as
Lakatosian SRPs. Human capital theory, the theory of the firm, general equilibrium theory
and rational expectations theory are some of these examples. As far as the criticism of
Lakatosian applications to economics are concerned, the main lines were similar to the ones
that we saw in the discussion of Kuhn. In particular, economists were focusing on the
vagueness of Lakatosian terminology and also the appropriateness for economics. However,
there were three additional lines of criticisms. The first had to do with the basic Lakatosian
notion of the hard core. A number of economists seem to believe that this notion is too loose
to be applied to economics. The second criticism had to do with the problematic nature of
empirical testing in economics. The third line of criticism was more cynical in the sense that

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