A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics

criticisms concerning the appropriateness and applicability of Kuhn’s influence on the
history of economics. The same approach is followed in the case of I. Lakatos. After a
classification and discussion of the main findings, the paper attempts to offer an
interpretation of the general impact of these two philosophers of science on ideas relating
to the development of economic thought .

II. The Influence of Thomas Kuhn

The basic ideas of Kuhn can be found in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”
(1970). Very briefly, according to Kuhn a given “paradigm” guides the scientific community.
The concept of paradigm implies a general theoretical viewpoint that members of the
community share (Subsequently, Kuhn replaced this concept with “disciplinary matrices” for
reasons of clarity). Scientific revolutions occur because the established paradigm faces a
scientific crisis which occurs because of accumulation of anomalies or unsolved scientific
puzzles. Gradually, a new paradigm becomes dominant. The revolutionary period is
characterized by “extraordinary science” while non revolutionary periods are characterized
by “normal science”. It has to be noted that this process has psychological rather than a
rational basis and this is the basic reason why there is what Kuhn calls the
incommensurability problem between competing paradigms. Subsequently, Kuhn moved
from a psychological explanation of incommensurability to one based in the philosophy of
language (see Bird, 2002 and for a detailed discussion of Kuhn’s ideas, see Kuhn, 1970,
2000; Redman, 1993 and Dow, 2002).

Within the first few years after the appearance of “The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions” (first edition, 1962), a number of economists attempted to explain the growth of
economic knowledge by following Kuhn’s ideas. Thus, a representative example of a general

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