L'analytique et le synthétique en économie

Philippe Mongin

Recherches économiques de Louvain, 2006, vol. 72, issue 4, 349-383

Abstract: This article applies to microeconomics a classic distinction of the philosophy of language, i.e., that between analytical and synthetic propositions. A further article will combine it with the epistemological distinction between a priori and a posteriori knowledge. We start by reconsidering the main definitions of the analytical and the synthetic. We rebut Quine?s famous objections against them, and then show how they operate on the theory of Giffen goods and substitute goods. The distinction makes it possible to clarify decisions that microeconomists leave implicit, at the risk of falling into semantic traps. In the particular instance, it reinforces the existing critique of Hicks?s definition of substitutes. As an secondary contribution, we show that economic methodology wrongly identifies analytical propositions with tautologies, and synthetic propositions with testable ones.

Date: 2006
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.cairn.info/load_pdf.php?ID_ARTICLE=REL_724_0349 (application/pdf)
http://www.cairn.info/revue-recherches-economiques ... -2006-4-page-349.htm (text/html)
free

Related works:
Working Paper: L’analytique et le synthétique en économie (2006)
Working Paper: L'analytique et le synthétique en économie (2006)
Working Paper: L'analytique et le synthétique en économie (2003)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cai:reldbu:rel_724_0349

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Recherches économiques de Louvain from De Boeck Université
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jean-Baptiste de Vathaire ().