A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics

As was mentioned, the second important characteristic of the Kuhnian analysis is the
emergence of a scientific revolution. There are historians who argued that Kuhnian- type
revolution emerged in economics. More specifically, Coats (1969) after presenting the main
propositions of a Kuhnian revolution pointed out that there was only one revolution in
economics sharing Kuhnian features, that of the Keynesian Revolution. In another paper
Coats (1972, pp. 308-314), more strongly than Blaug (1972, p. 277) who conceived the
marginal revolution as “a gradual transformation”, recognized some Kuhnian elements of this
revolution in economics. ¹

Ward also identifies the presence of scientific revolutions. He believes that
Keynesianism constitutes a scientific revolution although not in the strict sense that Kuhn
uses the expression. Furthermore, by using extensively the Kuhnian paradigm shift
methodology, showed that another revolution in the 20^th century was that of “the formalist
revolution” (Ward, 1972, p. 40). ² The view that Keynes’ theory constitutes a “scientific
revolution in the Kuhnian sense is shared by other economists apart from Ward. For
instance, Winch (1969), Mehta (1974, 1979), Dillard (1978), Stanfield (1974), Leijonhufvud
(1976) argue that the Keynesian revolution is a good example of a Kuhnian revolution in
the field of economics. In the same spirit (although not with regard to the Keynesian
revolution), O’Brien (1976, p. 103) considers that Kuhn’s system is “for economists, a
much more illuminating way of looking at their subject than that supplied by Popper”. Then,
he maintains (1976, p. 105) that the marginal revolution is a case of paradigm change from
the classical economy. In the same spirit, but much more recently, Schabas implies that
Jevons’ ideas were revolutionary for economics and this can be explained in Kuhnian
terms (Schabas, 1990, pp.5, 23).

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