Situational determinism revisited: scientific research programmes in economics twenty years on

John Nightingale

Journal of Economic Methodology, 1994, vol. 1, issue 2, 233-252

Abstract: Spiro Latsis (Latsis 1972) applied Imre Lakatos' methodology of scientific research programmes (MSRP) to economics. In that paper he proposed a distinction between 'situational determinism' and alternative theory. His distinction is effective at highlighting the importance of determinism in economics, the drive of economists to create fully deterministic models, at least up to a probability distribution. But he has been rightly criticized for arguing an alternative on grounds incompatible with Lakatos' MSRP. Latsis, at least implicitly, had hoped for the development of the alternative for which he argued. My argument is that Latsis' expectations have not been fulfilled. His alternative scientific research programme (SRP), that of the behaviouralists, has not developed as he expected. However, a different and theoretically progressive SRP has developed, one that includes most if not all of what might have been the behaviouralist SRP. This is the evolutionary SRP (ESRP). This SRP is defined in a manner that neatly sections off current orthodoxy as incompatible with it. The stage is thus set for a contest between SRPs.

Date: 1994
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DOI: 10.1080/13501789400000019

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