Rhetoric and Conceptual Problems in Economics: the Case of General Equilibrium Theory

Michele Gori and Vinicio Guidi ()
Additional contact information
Vinicio Guidi: Dipartimento Scienze Economiche

Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa

Abstract: The rhetorical perspective of science claims that scientific truths are what scientists agree is true on the basis of intellectual standards socially determined by the scientific tradition. According to that perspective, models are just rhetorical arguments used by economists in order to affect beliefs of the reference scientific community. Then, looking at the economic practice, we undertake a preliminary analysis of the criteria used by economists to assess and compare economic models. In particular, we argue that economists attach a great importance to the capability of models to solve problems of conceptual type. That allows to better understand how important is the role that general equilibrium theory has had and still has in economics and to rebut some criticisms made to the theory.

Keywords: scientific rhetoric; general equilibrium theory; economic models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B41 D50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 19 pages
Date: 2011
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.disei.unifi.it/upload/sub/pubblicazioni/repec/pdf/wp09_2011.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:frz:wpaper:wp2011_09.rdf

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers - Economics from Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa Via delle Pandette 9 50127 - Firenze - Italy. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Giorgio Ricchiuti ().