ABSTRACT

From the mid-1960s until the late 1980s, the well-known general philosophies of science of the time were applied to economics. The result was disappointing: none seemed to fit. This paper argues that this is due to a special feature of economics: it possesses ‘orientational paradigms’ in high number. Orientational paradigms are similar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are shared across scientific communities, but dissimilar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are not generally accepted as valid guidelines for further research. As will be shown by several examples, orientational paradigms provide economics with common points of reference that support its epistemic coherence and make scientific discourse more easily possible across school boundaries. With the help of systematicity theory, a newer general philosophy of science, one can further elucidate the role of orientational paradigms with regard to scientific progress.

摘要

从20世纪60年代中期到80年代末，当时著名的一般科学哲学被应用于经济学。结果令人失望：似乎没有一个合适。本文认为，这是由于经济学的一个特点：它拥有大量的“方向性范式”。定向范式与库恩范式相似，因为它们在科学界共享，但与库恩范式不同的是，它们不被普遍接受为进一步研究的有效指南。正如几个例子所示，定向范式为经济学提供了共同的参考点，支持其认识论的连贯性，并使科学话语更容易跨越学校界限。在系统性理论（一种较新的一般科学哲学）的帮助下，